Wagah Border trade and travel crossing Photo: Kamran Ali via Wikimedia Commons
Pakistan has returned an Indian soldier, Chandu Babulal Chohan, reportedly captured from the Line of Control (LoC) on September 29, 2016.
“The soldier was “convinced to return to his own country” after he deserted his post “due to his grievances of maltreatment against his commanders”, ISPR, the media wing of Pakistan’s armed forces, said.
Chohan had been stationed in Indian-held Kashmir. He had “willfully crossed the LoC on September 29, 2016 and surrendered himself to the Pakistan Army,” a news release said.
After the soldier’s ‘desertion’ on Sep 29, 2016, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United Nations Dr Maleeha Lodhi, while talking to Al Jazeera, had said that Pakistan Army had “captured an Indian soldier who was trying to enter” the Pakistani territory. Ambassador Lodhi, however, had denied that there had been any surgical strike inside the territory of Pakistan on the same day, as claimed by the Indian forces.
Pakistan Army had also reported killing several Indian soldiers on the same day during a firing incident across the LoC.
An Indian army official based in New Delhi had claimed , “It is confirmed one soldier from 37 Rashtriya Rifles with weapons has inadvertently crossed over to the Pakistan side of the Line of Control”.
Given the high-running tension between the two nuclear-armed neighbors since the summer of 2016 – when the protests exploded throughout the Indian-controled Kashmir – the return of the soldier has been done in an appreciable manner – with no war-mongering slogans.
But the ground reality is that India and Pakistan remain at loggerheads – with Islamabad accusing India of soking terrorism in Balochistan and butchering Kashmiri civilian protesters and New Delhi accusing Pakistan of allowing terrorist groups to launch attacks in India.
In addition to killing and blinding of hundreds of youth in Kashmir, a militant attack on an Indian army base in Uri also heightened tensions in 2016, which saw heavy trade of fire across the Line of Control that divides the disputed Kashmir territory.
The latest Pakistani gesture to return the Indian soldier provides an opening for peace overtures from both sides.
In Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s government has reaffirmed its commitment to establishing peaceful relations but has not been shy of holding India responsible for massacre of Kashmiri civilians.
Pakistan’s new army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa has vowed to continue the fight against terror outfits in the tribal areas along the Afghan border and elsewhere.
In India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose ultrantionalist government with several militant wings, is widely seen as drumming up war hysteria, has not come up with any change in policy toward Pakistan. Modi, who faces a series of state elections in the upcoming months, has often used anti-Pakistan slogans to win political support among people.
The question facing the two countries are : Will Modi rise above domestic politics to pursue peace with Pakistan after its repeated failures to isolate Pakistan? Will Pakistan also take stepts to normalize the situation and focus on counterterrorism?
Outside powers, notably the United States, which this week transitioned to the Donald Trump White House, can also help the cause of South Asian peace.
