Indian and Pakistani troops traded small arms fire and mortars more than 5000 times during 2020, the worst year in two decades since the two nuclear-armed nations had agreed for a ceasefire along the Line of Control (LoC) and International Border (IB) in Jammu and Kashmir (J-K).
The Ministry of Home Affairs told the parliament on Tuesday that 5,133 incidents of ceasefire violations were recorded in 2020 in which twenty-two civilians were killed while seventy-one were injured.
The ministry also informed the house that twenty-four government forces’ personnel were killed and 126 were injured.
The number of ceasefire violations last year were up by nearly 1500 from the preceding year when 3479 incidents were recorded in 2019.
India shares a 3,323-km-long border with Pakistan, of which 221 km of the International Border (IB) and 740 km of the Line of Control (LoC) fall in Jammu and Kashmir where the violations have been frequent last year.
There were no violations of the ceasefire in the initial three years of the agreement in 2004, 2005, and 2006.
The ceasefire between the Indian and Pakistani forces was agreed upon on 26 November 2003 when New Delhi had a government led by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Pakistan was under the military dictatorship of General Parvez Musharaf.
In 2018, 2140 incidents of ceasefire violations were recorded along the Line of Control and International Border in Jammu and Kashmir. In 2017, 971 incidents of violation were recorded.
In 2015, 405 cases of ceasefire violations were reported while 2014 accounted for 583 incidents.
