NEW DELHI: India on Thursday rejected Pakistan’s proposal for a United Nations investigation into Tuesday’s incident on the Line of Control (LoC), in which two Indian soldiers were killed with the body of one “badly mutilated”.
The issue figured at a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) which was briefed by Defence Minister A K Antony on the incident in Jammu and Kashmir’s Poonch sector on Jan 8 and subsequent developments, PTI reported.
“We are certainly not going to agree to internationalise the issue or allow the United Nations to hold an inquiry. That demand is obviously rejected out of hand,” Finance Minister P Chidambaram told a press conference after the meetings of the Union Cabinet and CCS.
Pakistan had on Wednesday claimed that its troops were not involved in the attack carried out inside the Indian territory in Mendhar area of Jammu and Kashmir and said it was prepared to hold investigation through the UN Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP).
Recommended: Kashmir border attack: India says “provocative”, Pakistan denies
UNMOGIP has presence on both sides of LoC.
”We take a serious view of what happened…Whatever has to be done will be done,” Chidambaram said while describing the incident as “brutal”.
Chidambaram, a member of CCS, which is presided by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, asserted that Indian troops had committed “no violation of the ceasefire agreement as claimed in a media report”.
(Read the report by The Hindu newspaper which says the skirmish started after Indian Army erected bunkers, violating the truce agreement of 2003 between the two countries, here.)
He said the conduct of the Indian troops was within the guidelines that were agreed upon by the two countries.