India expects more violence instigated by Pak in run up to elections, say sources

Kochi: India expects incidents of ceasefire violation by Pakistan to increase in the next few months ahead of general elections and to coincide with a change at the top in the Pakistani Army.

Defence Minister AK Antony said today that the Indian armed forces are "free to respond to the developing conditions at the border appropriately."

Mr Antony's statement, at the launch of India's first indigenous aircraft carrier INS Vikrant, came as Pakistan violated the ceasefire agreement at the Line of Control or LOC in Kashmir five times in three days, three of those attacks on various Indian Army posts in the last 24 hours, despite Islamabad's call for steps to ensure truce.

This has been described by the Indian Army as the biggest ceasefire violation in recent months. Early last week, five Indian Army soldiers were killed at the border; a Border Security Force or BSF jawan died yesterday.

Pakistan, however, has said that India's BSF has violated ceasefire and summoned the Indian deputy high commissioner in Islamabad today to "express concern" and ask New Delhi to uphold the ceasefire agreement of 2003 (Read).

Defence Ministry sources say they expect Pakistan's Army to step up hostilities at the border with general elections in India just months away. Also, the sources say, Pakistan's Army Chief General Ashfaq Kayani is expected to retire in November and seems to be flexing muscle to send a message to the civilian government in Pakistan, led by newly elected Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

Pakistan has also been known to favour the strategy of pushing through as many militants as possible before the mountain passes of the Himalayas close with the onset of winters and use the skirmishes at the border as cover for the infiltration attempts.

On the intervening night between Monday and Tuesday last week, Pakistani troops ambushed a patrol party of the Indian Army, killing five soldiers, and injuring a sixth in the Poonch sector, 200 km south of Srinagar. A Border Security Force or BSF jawan was injured in the incident and he died in a Delhi hospital on Sunday.

Mr Antony had been forced to amend his statement on the LoC killings in Parliament last week after the Opposition alleged that his words absolved the Pakistan army. After first blaming "people dressed in Pak army uniform", the minister directly blamed "specialized troops" of the Pakistan army.

Pakistani soldiers targeted several Indian posts over the weekend. On Sunday, they had attacked five posts in Mendhar and some in the Kanachak sector of Jammu and Kashmir.