Pakistan on Sunday accepted India’s repeated requests to hold a flag meeting of senior commanders to defuse the tension along the Line of Control. A brigadier-level flag meeting will be held on Monday afternoon at Chakkan-da-Bagh, the crossing point in the Poonch-Rawlakote corridor not very far from the area where the two armies have exchanged moderate to heavy firing in the past one week.
Pakistani troops violated the ceasefire yet again, firing at five Indian posts in the Poonch sector on Sunday evening hours after Islamabad agreed to the flag meeting. The fresh firing on Indian posts in the Nangitikri forward area along the LoC came around 4.30 pm, after heavy overnight firing in Krishnagati, also in Poonch. Earlier, the Army said on Sunday Pakistani troops had violated the November 2003 ceasefire along the LoC six times in the past 48 hours.
Sources said at Monday’s flag meeting the Army would strongly protest to its Pakistani counterparts over such violations, particularly the gruesome killing of two of its soldiers in the Mendhar sector on January 8.
It will also ask Pakistan to trace the head of one of the slain soldiers beheaded during the January 8 intrusion and return it.