Pakistan army has launched a project to build underground bunkers for safety of local residents living near the Line of Control (LoC), a de facto border that divides the disputed Himalayan valley between Pakistan and India, an official said.
The bunkers will also be constructed in every school near the de facto border to protect the children in case of any cease-fire violation by Indian forces, a local commander of Pakistan army told a group of foreign media journalists in Chakothi sector of Azad Kashmir.
“So far we have constructed around 70 community bunkers in areas along the LoC for protection of civilians, as India has escalated cease-fire violations and targeted civilian population in our areas,” the army commander said.
He said that security bunkers were already constructed in every village for soldiers to protect local residents and to timely respond if Indian forces target the civilian population.
“Many people have constructed small bunkers in their houses, however poor people couldn’t afford to build it in their houses,” Raja Muzaffar, a local resident of Chakoti, a border village near LoC, told Turkish News Agency.
“Twenty-seven civilians have been martyred and dozen others wounded in Indian forces’ firing on our areas in 2019,” the army official claimed.
