Srinagar
An article published in Nikkei Asia, the world’s leading financial newspaper, says that Kashmir is a developing flashpoint among three nuclear powers, Pakistan, India and China.
The newspaper writes that there has always been the threat of war looming over Kashmir that is not only in areas bordering with Pakistan — it is also across the border with China. “If this converts into a two-front war, then India faces an unprecedented threat that it does not appear adequately prepared for.”
Excerpts from the article go as: While 2020 will be remembered by most around the globe for the COVID-19 pandemic, the people of Kashmir will recall it as the year their local war moved up to two fronts.
On Nov. 13, Imtiyaz Ahmad, 47, was at work in a passport office in Srinagar, the main city in Indian-controlled Kashmir, when his phone alerted him to shelling between India and Pakistan across Jammu and Kashmir’s Line of Control (LoC). He immediately called home to his wife in Sirankote, a village on Pakistan’s doorstep, but there was no answer. Ahmad hurried home to his wife and their three daughters, trying hopelessly to get through on his cell all the way.
“I arrived the next morning and met my family,” Ahmad said. There was huge relief to see them safe, but any thought of returning to Srinagar was deeply unsettling.
The hostilities along the LoC on Nov. 13 left dead on both sides. India lost four soldiers, a member of the Border Security Force and six civilians.—KMS
