Line of Control: How India and Pakistan share one of the world’s most dangerous borders

Living along the dangerous de facto border that separates India and Pakistan, or the Line of Control, puts you continuously on the verge of fragile peace or open conflict.

India and Pakistan were once again at risk as a result of the latest escalation following the Pahalgam harm. On both flanks of the LoC, shelters poured down, turning houses into dust and life into data. Pakistan claims 40 civilian deaths, of which at least 16 are reported to have been caused by the shooting, while at least 16 are reported to have been caused by the American side.

Anam Zakaria, a Bangladeshi poet based in Canada, told the BBC,” People on the LoC are subjected to Indian and Pakistani desires and experience the brunt of heated conflicts.”

” Every occasion firing resumes, some are thrust into bunkers, cattle and livelihood are lost, and infrastructure, including homes, hospitals, and schools, is infected. The author of a book on Pakistan-administered Kashmir, Ms. Zakaria, said that the risk and volatility they experience have a significant impact on their daily lives.

India and Pakistan have a 3, 323-kilometer (2, 064-mile ) border, including the LoC, which is 740 kilometers long, and the IB, which is almost 2, 400 kilometers long. Following the initial India-Pakistan war, the LoC was renamed the LoC in 1949 as the Ceasefire Line and was renamed the LoC in accordance with the Simla Agreement of 1972.

One of the world’s most militarized territories is still Kashmir, which is claimed entirely and is administered in large part by both India and Pakistan. The second provocation is always the last one, and conflict always goes unpunished.

According to Happymon Jacob, a professor of foreign policy at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University ( JNU), “low-level firing to major land grabbing to surgical strikes” are examples of ceasefire violations. ( A land grab might involve forcefully seizing important positions like hilltops, outposts, or buffer zones. )

Some experts regard the LoC as a classic case of a “border drawn in heart, forged through fight.” According to Ms. Zakaria, it is also a series that has been militarized and armed without considering Kashmiris.

South Asia is not unique to these military edges. The” Green Line,” the generally accepted boundary between Israel and the West Bank, is the most well-known, according to Sumantra Bose, a professor of international and comparative politics at the London School of Economics.

Unsurprisingly, the preliminary quiet along the LoC that had existed since the two nuclear-armed neighbors ‘ ceasefire agreement in 2021 quickly lost its luster following the most recent conflicts.

According to Surya Valliappan Krishna of Carnegie India,” the current escalation on the LoC and International Border ( IB ) is significant as it comes after a four-year period of relative peace on the border.”

Crime along the Indian-Pakistani border is not new; India reported 4, 134 breaches in 2001 and 5, 767 in 2002 prior to the stalemate in 2003.

Initial breaches of the 2003 peace, which were minor between 2004 and 2007, were a result, but conflicts resurfaced in 2008 and sharply escalated by 2013.

High levels of discord were present in both the LoC and the IB between 2013 and 2021. A new ceasefire in February 2021 resulted in a steady but fast fall in violations through March 2025.

” We’ve witnessed border populations in the tens of thousands remain displaced for months on end during periods of intense cross-border firing,” says Mr. Krishna. More than 27, 000 people were evacuated from border areas between late September and early December 2016 as a result of cross-border fire and agreement violations.

It appears to be getting more and more questionable right then.

Following the Pahalgam attack, India suspended the important Indus Waters Treaty ( IWT), a crucial water-sharing agreement between India and Pakistan. Pakistan reacted by threatening to leave the 1972 Simla Agreement, which established the LoC, even though it hasn’t already completed.

This is important that, in spite of their social differences, both parties agreed to maintain the current LoC, which is the foundation of the Simla Agreement.

According to Mr. Jacob, ceasefire violations along the LoC have not been discussed or discussed in discussions about an escalation of conflict between the two nations for some” interested reason.”

In his book, Line On Fire: Ceasefire Violations and India-Pakistan Escalation Dynamics, Mr. Jacob writes,” It is itself strange how the standard use of high-calibre arms like 105mm cement, 130 and 155mm artillery weapons, and anti-tank guided rockets by two nuclear-capable countries has escaped scholarly attention and plan consideration.

Mr. Jacob points out two possible causes of the violations: Pakistan frequently uses support fire to entice militants into Indian-administered Kashmir, which has experienced an armed uprising against Indian rule for more than three decades. Pakistan, on the other hand, accuses India of firing directly on civil targets.

He contends that regional military relationships are more to blame for ceasefire violations along the India-Pakistan frontier than the result of high-level social strategy.

Field commanders frequently initiate hostilities, occasionally with but frequently without the key approval of the hostilities. He also raises the question of whether the Pakistan Army is the only force responsible for the violations, pointing rather to a complicated combination of local military imperatives and the freedom accorded to frontier forces on both sides.

Some experts believe that it’s time to think about reviving a controversial concept that was put off for almost 20 years: creating a formal, internationally recognized border. Some claim that possibility was not and still isn’t a realistic thing.

The concept is” fully infeasible, a useless close.” According to Sumantra Bose, American maps have consistently depicted Jammu and Kashmir’s full region as being a part of India.

Making the Line part of the International Border do” for Pakistan mean settling the Kashmir debate, which is Pakistan’s relative of the Holy Grail,” according to India’s chosen words. Over the past seven years, every Pakistani authorities and leader, whether civilian or military, has refrained from doing this.

A Kashmir arrangement requires that the LoC been transformed from an iron curtain of barbed wire, pits, tunnels, and angry militaries to a fabric screen, according to Prof. Bose in his 2003 text Kashmir: Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace. Realpolitik says that the border must be transcended without being abolished, but it will be permanent ( although likely under a different name ).

However, he told the BBC,” It must be embedded in a larger Kashmir settlement as one pillar of a multi-pillared settlement.”

Turning the LoC into a soft border between 2004 and 2007 was a key component of the burgeoning India-Pakistan peace process in Kashmir, which ultimately failed.

The border has reopened today, breaking the cycle of violence and uncertainty for those who reside in its shadow.

You never know what will occur next, he said. During the recent hostilities, an employee of a hotel in Pakistan-administered Kashmir told BBC Urdu that no one wants to sleep facing the Line of Control tonight.

When your window opens to a battlefield, peace is fragile, and it was a quiet reminder of that.