Last Sunday, Indian and Pakistani soldiers traded fire across the border of Kashmir known as the Line of Control (LoC). At least ten people were reported killed.
Conditions in Kashmir have been tense since 5 August, when India revoked Kashmir’s semi-autonomous status and then deployed thousands of additional troops to crackdown on any resistance. India has since arrested thousands of activists and separatist leaders, and it has shut down most of Kashmir’s media and telecommunications.
Both Pakistan and India, two nuclear-armed nations, claim territorial rights in the divided region. Kashmir is a borderline area in the northern parts of India and Pakistan, stretching about 86,000 square miles.
Since India gained freedom from British rule in 1947, and the country of Pakistan was established out of a section of Indian territory, the two nations have been in conflict over the Kashmir territory.
India controls about 55 percent of the land and Pakistan 30 percent, with the remaining section controlled by China, who has acted as an arbitrator at times.
After the borderline shooting last Sunday, both India and Pakistan accused the other’s military of targeting civilians.
India’s army chief claims that on Sunday, his troops fired at terrorist camps across the border. The Pakistani foreign affairs ministry issued a release stating several women and children were injured, and they invited diplomats from the United Nations to visit the border to confirm no rebel camps exist.
TREND FORECAST: As Gerald Celente has long said, “When all else fails, they take you to war.” India’s unilateral action against Kashmir began as its economy sharply slowed, with car sales, for example, recently plunging some 41 percent.
Should tensions escalate further and the risk of all-out war between the two economically troubled nations intensifies, the results could be cataclysmic, destabilizing the entire region.