Pakistan to release captured Indian pilot ‘as a peace gesture’
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan said on Thursday that his country would release a captured Indian pilot “as a peace gesture.”
Speaking to Pakistani lawmakers in parliament, Khan said the pilot, identified as Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman, would be released on Friday. Khan also said that he tried to reach out to his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, to de-escalate tensions between the two countries.
“Pakistan wants peace, but it should not be treated as our weakness,” Khan said. “The region will prosper if there is peace and stability. It is good for both sides.”
Khan’s comments came after Modi said that “India’s enemies are conspiring to create instability in the country through terror attacks.”
Read more: India and Pakistan’s troubled history
High tensions in South Asia
India welcomed Pakistan’s decision to free the captured pilot but said it remained on a “heightened” state of alert.
“We are fully prepared and in a heightened state of readiness to respond to any provocation from Pakistan,” said the Indian Army’s Major General Surendra Singh Mahal at a press conference. He said ground-based air defense weapons had been “put on high alert” along the Line of Control that divides disputed Kashmir between the two nuclear-armed rivals.
Nandan’s plane was one of two Indian planes shot down by Pakistan on Wednesday. Nandan’s plane crashed in the Pakistan-held part of Kashmir and the other crashed in the Indian-controlled part of the region. Pakistan later aired a video of Nandan being captured and taken into custody.
Tensions between the two South Asian neighbors have escalated since a suicide bombing by a Pakistan-based terror group killed over 40 Indian paramilitary troops in the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir.
On Tuesday, India responded with a pre-dawn airstrike inside Pakistan. It was the first such raid since both countries went to war in 1971.
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India-Pakistan rivalry: Kashmiris pay a high price
An unprecedented danger?
On February 27, Pakistan’s military said that it had shot down two Indian fighter jets over disputed Kashmir. A Pakistani military spokesman said the jets were shot down after they’d entered Pakistani airspace. It is the first time in history that two nuclear-armed powers have conducted air strikes against each other.
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India-Pakistan rivalry: Kashmiris pay a high price
India drops bombs inside Pakistan
The Pakistani military has released this image to show that Indian warplanes struck inside Pakistani territory for the first time since the countries went to war in 1971. India said the air strike was in response to a recent suicide attack on Indian troops based in Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan said there were no casualties and that its airforce repelled India’s aircraft.
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India-Pakistan rivalry: Kashmiris pay a high price
No military solution
Some Indian civil society members believe New Delhi cannot exonerate itself from responsibility by accusing Islamabad of creating unrest in the Kashmir valley. A number of rights organizations demand that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government reduce the number of troops in Kashmir and let the people decide their fate.
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India-Pakistan rivalry: Kashmiris pay a high price
No end to the violence
On February 14, at least 41 Indian paramilitary police were killed in a suicide bombing near the capital of India-administered Kashmir. The Pakistan-based Jihadi group, Jaish-e-Mohammad, claimed responsibility. The attack, the worst on Indian troops since the insurgency in Kashmir began in 1989, spiked tensions and triggered fears of an armed confrontation between the two nuclear-armed powers.
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India-Pakistan rivalry: Kashmiris pay a high price
A bitter conflict
Since 1989, Muslim insurgents have been fighting Indian forces in the Indian-administered part of Kashmir – a region of 12 million people, about 70 percent of whom are Muslim. India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars since independence in 1947 over Kashmir, which they both claim in full but rule in part.
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India-Pakistan rivalry: Kashmiris pay a high price
India strikes down a militant rebellion
In October 2016, the Indian military has launched an offensive against armed rebels in Kashmir, surrounding at least 20 villages in Shopian district. New Delhi accused Islamabad of backing the militants, who cross over the Pakistani-Indian “Line of Control” and launch attacks on India’s paramilitary forces.
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India-Pakistan rivalry: Kashmiris pay a high price
Death of a Kashmiri separatist
The security situation in the Indian part of Kashmir deteriorated after the killing of Burhan Wani, a young separatist leader, in July 2016. Protests against Indian rule and clashes between separatists and soldiers have claimed hundreds of lives since then.
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India-Pakistan rivalry: Kashmiris pay a high price
The Uri attack
In September 2016, Islamist militants killed at least 17 Indian soldiers and wounded 30 in India-administered Kashmir. The Indian army said the rebels had infiltrated the Indian part of Kashmir from Pakistan, with initial investigations suggesting that the militants belonged to Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad group, which has been active in Kashmir for over a decade.
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India-Pakistan rivalry: Kashmiris pay a high price
Rights violations
Indian authorities banned a number of social media websites in Kashmir after video clips showing troops committing grave human rights violations went viral on the Internet. One such video that showed a Kashmiri protester tied to an Indian army jeep – apparently as a human shield – generated outrage on social media.
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India-Pakistan rivalry: Kashmiris pay a high price
Demilitarization of Kashmir
Those in favor of an independent Kashmir want Pakistan and India to step aside and let the Kashmiri people decide their future. “It is time India and Pakistan announce the timetable for withdrawal of their forces from the portions they control and hold an internationally supervised referendum,” Toqeer Gilani, the president of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front in Pakistani Kashmir, told DW.
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India-Pakistan rivalry: Kashmiris pay a high price
No chance for secession
But most Kashmir observers don’t see it happening in the near future. They say that while the Indian strategy to deal strictly with militants and separatists in Kashmir has partly worked out, sooner or later New Delhi will have to find a political solution to the crisis. Secession, they say, does not stand a chance.
dv/amp (AP, Reuters)
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