Pakistan to inform UNSC over India's 'surgical strikes'

Islamabad: Pakistan's UN Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi is set to meet UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Friday to inform him about the "surgical strikes" that India carried out on terrorist launch pads across the Line of Control (LoC). On Thursday, Lodhi met with New Zealand's UN Ambassador Gerard van Bohemen, who is the current president of the 15-member Security Council and urged him to informally brief the body on the escalating tension along the border, Radio Pakistan reported. Talking to the media after the meeting, Lodhi said she brought to his attention the dangerous situation that was building up in "our region as a result of Indian provocation". She said, "our call to the international community is to avert a crisis before there is one." Lodhi said Pakistan was "showing maximum restraint but there were limits to our restraint if India continues with provocations." An unspecified number of terrorists and Pakistani troops were killed in the late Wednesday operation across Jammu and Kashmir's Kupwara and Poonch sectors as the army moved Special Forces into Pakistan-held Kashmir. Pakistan, however, insisted that no "surgical strike" took place and that there were only firing and artillery shelling between the two armies across the LoC that killed two of its soldiers and left some others wounded. Pakistan threatened to repel any Indian attack. Pakistani media said one Indian soldier, identified as Chandu Babulal Chohan, 22, from Maharashtra, had been captured and eight others had been killed.