The cease-fire between India and Pakistan announced on May 10 appeared to have been short-lived as reports of continued fighting between the two nations in the Kashmir region were confirmed by India’s Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri.
“The armed forces are giving an adequate and appropriate response to these violations, and we take very, very serious notice of these violations,” he continued. ”We call upon Pakistan to take appropriate steps to address these violations and deal with the situation with seriousness and responsibility.”
The foreign minister also confirmed that India’s armed forces were given instructions to “deal strongly with any instances of repetition of the violations” along both the international border and the line of control in the divided Kashmir region.
Blasts were heard in Srinagar and Jammu, according to Reuters, just hours after the cease-fire was reportedly agreed to.
The cease-fire was celebrated by President Donald Trump, who credited his administration with mediating the discussion.
Meanwhile, Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has continued to share discussions between Deputy Prime Minister of Pakistan Ishaq Dar and several world leaders such as European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs Kaja Kallas and China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif addressed his nation just after 11 p.m. local time, declaring “victory” and describing India as the aggressor.
“India, because they are so proud, they just tried their best to attack our borders through drone attacks, through missiles, and they have also taken innocent lives. They have destroyed mosques,” he said. “They wanted to target all those places that were very precious to us, and we then decided we were going to retaliate in the same way.”
He praised his nation’s military for overcoming the Indian cannons and successfully blocking the Indian air forces.
The Epoch Times reached out to Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs for comment.
Misri, in confirming the agreement to stop fighting on May 10, also said that the military chiefs of both countries would meet on May 12.
The fighting began on May 7, with India executing air strikes in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir and Pakistan against infrastructure associated with the terrorists responsible for the April attack that killed 26 people in Indian-controlled Kashmir. While India claimed it was not targeting any Pakistani installations, the leadership in Islamabad called the airstrikes an act of war and began to retaliate.
India also accused Pakistan of being involved in the terrorist attack, which Pakistan denied.
So far, more than 60 people have been killed in the conflict, which threatens to destabilize the subcontinent with all-out war between nuclear-armed powers. It was unclear at the time of this article’s publication whether the death toll would rise due to the ongoing fighting.
Kashmir has been the setting of several clashes between India and Pakistan since their creation in 1947, as part of their independence from the British Empire after World War II. Once a single territory, Pakistan and Bangladesh, which at the time was called East Pakistan, were created for the region’s Muslim populations.
