The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) reported that the Indian border security forces had again violated the Line of Control (LoC) ceasefire on Monday, as its troops resorted to unprovoked firing along the Nakial sector in Sialkot.
Pakistani troops befittingly responded to Indian firing and silenced the enemy’s artillery, an ISPR statement said.
The skirmish at the border resumed only a day after military officials from Pakistan and India met to discuss the aggravating situation along the LoC and the Working Boundary (WB) as military observers from the United Nations recently visited affected areas inside Pakistan.
Pakistani and Indian border security forces had agreed on Friday to maintain restraint on their disputed Kashmir frontier, as they sought to defuse tensions that have been heightened in recent months by militant attacks that each side blames the other for.
The border chiefs agreed to hold back cross-border firing and not to retaliate immediately to violations of a 15-year ceasefire, an Indian interior ministry official said.
The heads of India's Border Security Force and the Pakistani Rangers met in New Delhi to find ways to de-escalate tensions along the border as part of a series of measures agreed by the leaders of the two countries in July.
“Both have decided not to immediately retaliate against firing from either side and to contact the other side to know the cause of firing,” the official said, reading from a draft text the two governments agreed.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has promised a tougher response to such violations than previous administrations, and last year the two armies engaged in the most serious exchanges since the 2003 ceasefire.
Modi cancelled top level talks between the national security advisers of the two countries last month, objecting to Pakistan's plan to meet Kashmiri leaders.
But the two governments agreed to let the border chiefs meet. The two forces will have greater communication to ensure things do not spiral out of control, the Indian official said.
