SRINAGAR: Indiaand Pakistan exchanged "heavy" cross-border fire yesterday, after NewDelhi's move to strip the restive Kashmir region of its autonomy prompted arare meeting of the UN Security Council. The two foes regularly fire potshotsover the Line of Control (LoC) in the disputed Himalayan territory, which isdivided between the two countries and poisoned their relations sinceindependence in 1947.
But the latestexchange follows India's decision this month to rip up the specialconstitutional status of its part of Kashmir, sparking protests from the localpopulation, outrage from Pakistan and unease from neighboring China. "Theexchange of fire is going on," a senior Indian government official toldAFP, calling it "heavy". One Indian soldier was reportedly killed.Pakistan made no immediate comment on the violence.
Late Friday,Pakistan and China succeeded in getting the UN Security Council to discussKashmir-behind closed doors-for the first time since the Indo-Pakistan war of1971. Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan yesterday hailed the gathering,saying that addressing the "suffering of the Kashmiri people &ensuring resolution of the dispute is the responsibility of this world body".
New Delhi insiststhe status of the territory is a purely internal matter. "We don't needinternational busybodies to try to tell us how to run our lives. We are abillion-plus people," India's UN envoy Syed Akbaruddin said after themeeting. US President Donald Trump urged the nuclear-armed rivals to come backto the negotiating table, speaking to Khan by phone on the importance of"reducing tensions through bilateral dialogue".
Phone lines
India yesterdaymeanwhile gradually restored phone lines following an almost two-weekcommunications blackout in its part of Kashmir, imposed hours before PrimeMinister Narendra Modi's surprise August 5 gambit. Seventeen out of around 100telephone exchanges were restored yesterday in the restive Kashmir Valley, thelocal police chief told AFP.
But mobiles andthe internet remained dead in the Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley, the mainhotbed of resistance to Indian rule in Jammu and Kashmir state in a 30-year-oldconflict that has killed tens of thousands. Fearing an angry and potentiallyviolent response, India also sent 10,000 extra troops to the area, severelyrestricted movement and arrested some 500 local politicians, activists,academics and others. The state's Chief Secretary BVR Subrahmanyam had saidFriday there would be a "gradual" restoration of phone lines over theweekend, with schools to resume classes in some areas next week.
Clashes
Thetransformation of Srinagar into an eerie maze of barricades, soldiers andconcertinas of barbed wire has failed to stop public anger boiling to thesurface. "We want peace and nothing else, but they have kept us under thislockdown like sheep while taking decisions about us," resident Tariq Madritold AFP. "Even my nine-year old son asked me why they had locked us inside,"he added. Several hundred protesters clashed with police in the city on Friday,who responded with tear gas and pellet-firing shotguns.
People hurledstones and used shop hoardings and tin sheets as improvised shields, as policeshot dozens of rounds into the crowd. No injuries were reported. The clashesbroke out after more than 3,000 people rallied in the city's Souraneighborhood, which has witnessed regular demonstrations this month. A weekearlier around 8,000 people staged a protest which also ended in a violentconfrontation with police, residents said. "I want the government to knowthat this aggression and aggressive policies don't work on the ground,"said 24-year-old Adnan Rashid, an engineering student.
Some people tookto the streets yesterday to buy essential goods but most shops in Srinagarremained closed. Mohammed Altaf Malik, 30, said people remained angry about thestripping of Kashmir's special status "and the way it was done"."There is widespread corruption and the police here have made it abusiness to pick up any people it wants and then ask for money to release themfrom detention," Malik said as he went to visit a sick neighbor inhospital. "We don't see anything changing from this for ordinary peoplelike us," he added.
Changing 'nofirst use'
Meanwhile,India's defense minister hinted on Friday that New Delhi might change its"no first use" policy on nuclear weapons, amid heightened tensionswith fellow atomic power Pakistan. India committed in 1999 to not being thefirst to use nuclear weapons in any conflict. Among India's neighbors China hasa similar doctrine but arch rival Pakistan does not.
Defense MinisterRajnath Singh made the comment on Twitter after visiting Pokhran, the site ofIndia's successful nuclear tests in 1998 under then prime minister AtalVajpayee. "Pokhran is the area which witnessed (Vajpayee's) firm resolveto make India a nuclear power and yet remain firmly committed to the doctrineof 'No First Use'," Singh wrote.
"India hasstrictly adhered to this doctrine. What happens in future depends on thecircumstances," Singh tweeted. The statement comes as tensions rise withPakistan after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government strippedIndian-administered Kashmir of its autonomy, a move sharply condemned byIslamabad.
'Stop lying'
Singh's commentsprompted considerable noise in both India and Pakistan, with Pakistan'sminister for human rights Shireen Mazari tweeting that India "need to stoplying". "India's claims to NFU ended when on 4 Jan 2003 Indian govtdeclared it would use nuclear weapons against any (even Chemical or Biological)attack 'against India or Indian forces anywhere'," she said. Observerssaid Singh's statement is the clearest so far with regards to a change in India'snuclear doctrine.
Vipin Narang, aprofessor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, tweeted it was the"highest level declaration that India may not feel indefinitely orabsolutely bound to No First Use." Singh received support from SubramanianSwamy, a hardliner parliamentarian from Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)."Rajnath is correct as to warn about possible review of Vajpayee's nofirst use of n weapons since Pak leadership is more crazed today than in1998," he tweeted.
"First use isrequired now on if we get credible evidence that Pak faced with ignominy may gofor first strike. We must pre-empt that," Swamy wrote. This is not thefirst time that the Modi government has made a statement regarding its nuclearpolicy. In 2016, then defense minister Manohar Parrikar had expressed hisreservations over the "no first use" nuclear policy. Parrikar, whodied last year, had said India was a responsible nuclear power and "itwould not use it irresponsibly."
A revision to thepolicy was part of the BJP's election manifesto in 2014. Then front runnerModi, however, stated that if voted to power, he had no intention of changingthe stance. Running for a second term earlier this year, Modi had said hisgovernment had called Pakistan's "nuclear bluff". "India hasstopped getting scared of Pakistan's threats. Every other day they say, 'wehave a nuclear button.' What do we have then? Have they kept it forDiwali?"," he said, referring to a Hindu festival when fireworks areset off.- Agencies