[Reports suggest soldier crossed ceasefire
line hours after military operation against ‘terrorist launchpads’ had
concluded]
By Jon Boone
 |
People gather around the coffin of a Pakistani soldier killed near the
Pakistan-India border in Kashmir. Photograph: Ghazanfar
Majid/AFP/Getty Images
|
India is urgently seeking the release of one
of its soldiers captured by Pakistani troops in Kashmir, the contested
territory where Delhi said it had conducted “surgical strikes” on Wednesday
night.
Rajnath Singh, India’s home minister, said
“all attempts are being made” to secure the soldier’s release. It is not clear
whether the soldier was connected with the claimed multiple raids across
Kashmir’s “line of control”, a mutually recognised ceasefire line.
Some reports said the soldier had wandered
across the line hours after the operation had concluded. Maleeha Lodhi,
Pakistan’s ambassador to the United Nations, told al-Jazeera the soldier was
captured while trying to enter into Pakistani territory.
Tensions remain high and on Friday thousands
of Indians living near the Pakistani border in Punjab were ordered into buses
and taken to evacuee camps.
Pakistan’s army has vigorously denied that
Indian troops entered territory it controls, saying Delhi is exaggerating what
it claims was relatively common cross-border firing for domestic public
consumption.
Although India has conducted cross-border
raids in the past, it has never announced them so publicly. On Thursday, the
Indian army’s director of military operations held a press conference in which
he said multiple “terrorist launchpads” inside Pakistani-controlled territory
had been targeted.
Pakistan said two of its soldiers were killed
during what it described as “Indian unprovoked firing”.
The Indian operation followed more than a
week of rising tensions in the wake of an attack on an Indian army base near
the town of Uri on 18 September. Nineteen Indian soldiers died in the attack,
which Delhi blamed on Pakistan-backed militants, a claim flatly denied by
Islamabad.
The latest incident has demonstrated the
willingness of India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, to take a hard line with
Pakistan. Most analysts had assumed India would not seek to retaliate
militarily for fear of prompting a cycle of escalation between the two
nuclear-armed states.
Delhi has sought to isolate Pakistan
diplomatically, and this week Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Bhutan followed
India’s lead in saying they would not attend a regional summit in Islamabad in
November.
The crisis has inflamed public sentiment on
both sides of the border, with some Pakistani cinemas announcing the cancellation
of all Indian films. On Thursday, the Indian Motion Picture Producers’
Association announced a ban on Pakistani actors working on Bollywood
productions.
After a meeting of his cabinet on Friday,
Pakistan’s prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, vowed to “defend our homeland against
any aggression”. He added: “The entire nation is standing shoulder to shoulder
with our armed forces.”
*
[Indian Motion Picture Producers’ Association
bans Pakistani actors, singers and technicians from working on Indian films as
troops clash in disputed territoryThe Indian Motion Picture Producers’
Association has banned Pakistani actors, singers and technicians from working
on Indian films.]
By Catherine
Shoard
 |
|
Reports allege that the
Pakistani singer Rahat Fateh Ali Khan has been
dropped from the upcoming
film Laali Ki Shaadi Mein Laddoo
Deewana. Photograph: Odd
Andersen/AFP/Getty Images
|
The organisation’s president, TP Aggarwal,
said: “No Pakistani will be hired by their producer members for ever.” However,
as a crisis between Indian and Pakistan over attacks in the disputed territory
of Kashmir escalates, other reports stated that the ban would last only until
normal relations resume between the two countries.
The IMPPA’s decision, carried at the
organisation’s annual general meeting on Friday, comes in the wake of the
deaths on 18 September of 19 Indian soldiers in the Uri region, part of the
disputed territory of Kashmir. India blamed the assault on Pakistan-sponsored
militants and this week launched strikes across the 1972 ceasefire line that
divides the Himalayan region.
Ashoke Pandit, a producer and IMPPA member,
said: “IMPPA paid homage to the martyrs who were killed in Uri. It therefore
felt its responsibility towards the nation and passed a resolution banning
Pakistani actors and technicians in India till normalcy returns. For IMPPA,
nation comes first.”
Separately, far-right political party
Maharashtra Navnirman Sena has led a call for all film industry workers of Pakistani
origin to leave India, as well as for their films to be banned. The party, led
by Raj Thackeray, issued a 48-hour ultimatum to Pakistani movie workers to
leave India by 25 September or risk being “pushed out”.
Reports allege that Pakistani singer Rahat
Fateh Ali Khan has been dropped from forthcoming film Laali Ki Shaadi Mein
Laddoo Deewana. A number of films scheduled for release during the Diwali
holiday in October may also be affected, including Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, which
co-stars Pakistani pin-up Fawad Khan alongside Indian stars Aishwarya Rai and
Ranbir Kapoor.
Dear Zindagi, due to hit cinemas in November,
may also be affected. The film co-stars Pakistan’s Ali Zafar and India’s Shah
Rukh Khan.
