India’s dangerous game at LoC may put Afghan talks at risk, says Qureshi

Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Saturday said he feared that some forces would play the role of “spoilers” in view of the worsening situation in Indian-occupied Kashmir and as the Afghan peace talks entered a “critical stage”.

Talking to a private news channel, Qureshi said India was “in a state of panic” following US President Donald Trump’s offer to mediate the Kashmir dispute and Prime Minister Imran Khan’s successful visit to Washington. “I fear that [India] is in search of a false-flag operation […] which it can use to again point fingers at Pakistan,” the foreign minister added.

Qureshi said he had expressed similar concerns in a letter to the United Nations secretary-general.

Asked how Pakistan would respond to the Indian aggression, the minister said diplomatic means would be used to direct the attention of the international community towards this violation. In this regard, information will be shared with the envoys of P5 members of the Security Council.

He observed that India was neither ready for mediation nor bilateral engagement and yet it continued to carry out ceasefire violations, including the violation of the Geneva Convention through the use of cluster munitions.

“India is playing an extremely dangerous game and the international community should take notice of this,” Qureshi said, adding that the latest violations threatened to harm regional peace and stability.

He also expressed his doubts over calls to ration food and ban on edible imports by India, which also implicated something serious brewing on the other side of the border.

Cluster ‘toy’ bombs have been recovered from the Line of Control (LoC) which were put there for nefarious purposes which are being traced back to India.

According to details, the toy bombs were placed in the peripheries of the Azad Jammu and Kashmir area of Pakistan, near the working boundary of the two countries.

The bombs have thus far martyred a 4-year-old adolescent along with 2 others and left 11 injured in its wake.

The cluster bombs have been banned according to the United States (UN) Geneva convention of which India is a signatory.

The cluster toy bomb is shaped like a harmless toy and can be devastating after detonating, exploding into million shards of razor-sharp blades which pierce through whatever comes in the range of the blast.

The bombs are primarily targeted towards the children who take them home with them unbeknownst to the havoc they could wreak.