Line of Control:
Pakistan violated the ceasefire along the Line of Control in the Kashmir Valley by resorting to unprovoked firing, a defence official said recently and added the army responded appropriately.
- The LoC is the de facto military boundary between India and Pakistan in the region of Jammu and Kashmir.
- It is not an international boundary but a ceasefire line that was established after the 1947-48 India-Pakistan war over Kashmir.
- Then called the Ceasefire Line (CFL), it was redesignated as the “Line of Control” following the Simla Agreement, which was signed on 3 July 1972, following the 1971 Indo-Pakistan war.
- The LoC stretches about 740 kilometers, from the region of Ladakh in the north down to the Poonch district in the south.
- It is heavily militarized, with frequent skirmishes and exchanges of fire between Indian and Pakistani forces.
- On the Indian side of the LoC comes a part of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. On the Pakistani side comes the part of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK), Gilgit, and Baltistan.
- The LoC is different from the International Border (IB), which is the officially recognized border between India and Pakistan elsewhere.
