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Border guns fall silent
26/11/2003 07:50 - (SA)
New Delhi - India and Pakistan began a ceasefire on Wednesday to silence their armies' nearly constant salvoes across their shared border - the first such accord in 14 years.
There was no firing from midnight on Tuesday at any part of the Line of Control that divides disputed Jammu-Kashmir between the two nuclear-armed nations, SM Sahai, the police deputy inspector-general on the Jammu side of the line, said on Wednesday.
"It has been all quiet," he said, adding that the last shots fired between the two armies in that area were at 07:30 on Tuesday.
Along the frontier in Kashmir, where India says Pakistani firing covers the infiltration of Islamic militants, there was also no firing of any kind, "not even celebration fire," said Indian army Lieutenant Colonel Mukhtiar Singh.
The two nations' armies - which trade machine-gun and mortar fire almost daily - were to observe the ceasefire along their entire frontier, the governments said on Tuesday. That includes the international border that covers western states in India and Pakistan, the Line of Control dividing Jammu-Kashmir, and the frontier at the Siachen Glacier.
Neither side specified how long the truce would last. India said on Monday an enduring ceasefire would depend on Pakistan ending the infiltration of Islamic militants into India's portion of Kashmir.
The largest Pakistan-based militant group battling in India's portion of the divided Himalayan province said its men would keep on fighting.
No difference
"This will not make any difference for mujahedeen activities," Salim Hashmi, speaking for Hezb-ul-Mujahedeen, from Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir. "The mujahedeen will continue their operations."
India has accused Pakistan of using artillery fire as a cover to help militants sneak into Jammu-Kashmir to attack government forces and civilians in the past 14 years, and more than 65 000 people, most of them Muslim civilians, have died in the fighting.
Pakistan says it gives the militants only diplomatic and moral support in their goal to merge the Indian portion of Jammu-Kashmir with Pakistan or make it independent. Some groups, such as Hezb-ul-Mujahedeen, openly have headquarters in Pakistan's territory.
The two nations have fought three wars, two of them over Kashmir, since gaining independence from Britain in 1947. They were on the brink of a fourth war last year after an attack on December 13, 2001 on the Indian Parliament.
New Delhi blamed the assault on two Pakistani-based militant groups and Pakistan's spy agency. Pakistan outlawed the militant groups and denied involvement.
Both countries rushed hundreds of thousands of troops to the border, but international mediation ended the crisis.
Relations have improved since April, when Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee called for another attempt to resolve 52 years of enmity. India and Pakistan have since restored their ambassadors and resumed a bus link.
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