How India and Pakistan share one of the most dangerous boundaries in the world

Living on the line of control (LOC) – the volatile de -factic border that divides India and Pakistan – is to constantly exist on the edge of the razor between the fragile peace and the discovered conflict.

Recent escalation after Pahalgam’s attack They brought India and Pakistan to the edge again. The shells were raining on both sides of LOC, turning homes to ruins and living in statistics. At least 16 people have been reported to have been killed by the Indian side, while Pakistan alleges 40 civilian deaths, although it remains unclear how directly caused by the firing.

“LOC’s families are subjected to Indian and Pakistani whims and are confronted with the weight of heated tension,” Pakistani writer, headquartered in Canada, told the BBC.

“Every time the firing resumed many are inserted into bunkers, livestock and livelihoods, infrastructure – homes, hospitals, schools – is damaged.

India and Pakistan share a border of 3.323 km (2 064 miles), including 740 km LOC; and the international border (IB), covering approximately 2400 km. Loc began as a fire termination line in 1949 after the first war in India and Pakistan and was renamed under 1972. Simla agreementS

Loc cut through Kashmir – claimed entirely and administered in parts of India and Pakistan – remains one of the most militarized boundaries in the world. The conflict never lags behind and the cessation of fire is as durable as the next provocation.

Fire termination disorders here can range from “low -level shooting to large land picking up to Surgically“Says Happymon Jacob, a foreign policy expert at JawaHarlal Nehru University of Delhi (JNU).

Loc, many experts say, is a classic example of a “border painted in blood, forged by conflict.” This is also a line, as Da Zakaria says, “carved from India and Pakistan, and militarized and armed without taking into account cashmeris.”

Such borders of wartime are not unique to South Asia. Sumantra Bose, a professor of international and comparative policies at the London School of Economics, says the most famous is The The “Green line” – The 1949 fire termination line – which is the generally admitted border between Israel and the west coast.

It is not surprising that the indicative calm of Loc, which endured after the fire termination agreement in 2021. Between the two nuclear armed neighbors, they fell easily after recent hostilities.

“The current escalation of LOC and the international border (IB) is significant as it follows a four -year period of relative peace at the border,” said Suria Valiapan Krishna of Carnegie India before the BBC.

Violence at the border between India and Pakistan is not new – before the termination of fire in 2003, India reported 4.134 violations in 2001 and 5 767 in 2002.

Initially, the termination of fire in 2003 with minor violations from 2004 to 2007, but tensions appeared in 2008 and escalating sharply until 2013.

Between 2013 and early 2021, LOC and IB witnessed maintained high levels of conflict. The updated termination of fire in February 2021 led to an immediate and prolonged decline in violations by March 2025.

“During periods of intensive cross-border launch, we observe a border population in many thousands to dispose of months,” says Mr Krishna. Between the end of September and the beginning of December 2016, over 27,000 people were displaced by border areas due to disorders of fire and cross -border shootings.

Now it seems more and more uncertain.

Tension flared up after Pahalgam’s attack, with India suspending the key contract to share water between India and Pakistan known as Indo’s Water Contract (IWT). Pakistan replied, threatening to exit the Simla agreement of 1972, which formalizes LOC – although it has not yet followed.

“This is important because the Simla agreement is at the heart of the current LOC, which both sides agreed not to change one -sided, despite their political differences,” says Krishna.

Jacob says that for some “curious reason” the disorders of the cessation of fire along LOC are absent from discussions and debates to escalate the conflict between the two countries.

“He himself puzzles how regular use of high-caliber weapons such as 105mm mortars, 130 and 155mm artillery cannons and anti-tank rockets from two countries that are in the state of nuclear, which led to the dynamic countries of the civil and the military, fled the dynamic of the scientist Attention, “writes Mr. Jacob.

Mr. Jacob identifies two main trials: Pakistan often uses concealed fire to facilitate the belligerent infiltration in India-administered Kashmir, who has witnessed an armed uprising against Indian government for three decades. Pakistan, for its part, accuses India of seamless civilian firing.

He claims that disorders of fire termination along the border between India and Pakistan are less a product of a high-level political strategy and more than the result of local military dynamics.

Military action is often initiated by the field commanders – sometimes with, but often without central approval. He also disputes the idea that only the Pakistani army leads to violations, instead indicating a complex combination of local military imperatives and autonomy provided to the border forces on both sides.

Some experts believe it is time to review the idea that was postponed nearly two decades ago: turning LOC into an official, internationally recognized border. Others insist that the opportunity has never been realistic – and it is not yet.

“The idea is a completely impossible, dead end. For decades, Indian maps have shown the entire territory of the former princely state of Jamu and Kashmir as part of India,” Sumantra Bose told the BBC.

“For Pakistan, the transformation of the local part of the international border would mean the settlement of the Kashmir dispute – which is the equivalent of Pakistan of the Holy Grail – under India’s preferred conditions. Every government and leader of Pakistan and leader, civil or military over the last seven decades has rejected this.”

In his 2003 book, Kashmir: Conflict Roots, Paths to Peace, Prof. Bose writes: “The village of Kashmir requires to be transformed – from an iron curtain of barbed wire, bunkers, trenches and hostile to lingerie. transferred without transferring without being transferred, without being transferred, without transferring, without transferring, without transferring without transferring, without transferring, without transfer without transfer, without transfer without transfer without transfer without transfer without transfer without transfer without transfer without transfer without transfer without transfer without transfer without transfer without transfer without transfer without transfer without transfer without transfer without transfer without to transfer. ”

“However, I emphasized that such a transformation of LOC should be built into a wider settlement in Kashmir, as a pillar of a multi-led village,” he told the BBC.

Between 2004 and 2007, the transformation of LOC into a soft border was central to the newly constructed peace process in India and Pakistan of Kashmir, a process that eventually fell apart.

Today, the border restored, returning the cycle of violence and insecurity for those who live in his shadow.

“You never know what will happen next. No one wants to sleep with the control line tonight,” said a hotel employee in Pakistan, administered by Kashmir over the BBC URDU during recent hostilities.

It was a quiet reminder of how fragile peace is when your window opened in a battlefield.