New Delhi/Srinagar/Jammu/Poonch, January 21
India today summoned Pakistan Acting High Commissioner Mansoor after the cross-LoC trade on the Salamabad-Chakoti and Chakan-da-Bagh-Rawlakote routes, a prized confidence-building measure between the two countries, was suspended today as the tense standoff at the Line of Control (LoC) worsened on its fifth day.

"While the two Foreign Ministries were working towards resolving the matter through diplomatic channels, it was surprising that Pakistan chose to hold hostage trans-LoC trade and travel which were bringing immense humanitarian benefits to the people of Jammu and Kashmir for the sake of persons indulging in drug trafficking," the Pakistani diplomat was told by Rudrendra Tandon, Joint Secretary (Pakistan) in the External Affairs Ministry.

A senior J-K government official here said the cross-LoC trade, which takes place four days a week —from Tuesday to Friday — with bartering facilities located at Salamabad in north Kashmir's Baramulla district and Chakoti, on other side of the LoC, has been suspended.

"Trading has been suspended for today. We are not sure what will happen tomorrow, or next week or next month. The matter is now between the governments," Deputy Commissioner of Baramulla district, Ghulam Ahmad Khwaja, told The Tribune.

The suspension of trade, which began on October 10, 2008, happens a day after Pakistani authorities suspended the cross-LoC bus service on Srinagar-Muzaffarabad and Poonch-Rawlakote routes.

Over 600 Indian traders from Kashmir and 165 traders from Jammu are associated with the trade via Salamabad and Chakan-da-Bagh trade centres respectively.

The stand-off began on Friday evening, the last trading day of the past week, when a haul of contraband, believed to be 114 kg of brown sugar and estimated to cost Rs 114 crore, was seized from a Pakistani truck at the Salamabad trading facility.

The truck, which was part of a cross-LoC trade convoy entering Kashmir from the Pakistani side, was seized and its driver arrested by the state police. Traders in Jammu and Kashmir are squarely blaming New Delhi for the present crisis. They have accused the Indian Government of inertia that has kept both the trade routes vulnerable to smuggling of contraband like narcotics and arms from PoK.