A Pakistani soldier was killed earlier today near the Line of Control (LOC), the de facto border dividing the disputed Kashmir region between India and Pakistan. The incident follows the death of two Indian soldiers and another Pakistani soldier in the same area in the past week.
Over the past five days, a series of cease-fire violations and deadly border clashes has led to rising tensions between India and Pakistan, threatening to reverse a recent trend of cooperation between these two countries, which have fought over Kashmir since their partition.
“The incursion of troops across the LOC is an escalation,” Cabeiri Robinson, assistant professor of international studies and South Asian studies at the University of Washington and author of “Body of Victim, Body of Warrior: Refugee Families and the Making of Kashmiri Jihadists,” told Trend Lines in an email interview. “And the accusations of mutilation of the bodies and the counteraccusations of manufacturing a violation for propaganda purposes recall a pattern of accusation, denial and counteraccusation that was last evident in incidents that occurred in 2000.”