Infiltration attempts along LoC ahead of Jammu and Kashmir elections: Army

Srinagar: Ahead of the assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir, Army on Monday said that the infiltration attempts along the LoC are on with the militants employing a

"desperate" trend by pushing in IEDs and huge cache of weapons in the state.

"The indications on the LoC are that infiltration attempts are on. But we have been able to successfully foil them till now," General Officer Commanding of the Srinagar-based Chinar Corps, Lt Gen Subrata Saha said.

Lt Gen Saha said the number of militants "neutralized" this year was much higher than the previous year.

"129 this year as compared to 89 last year. The number of terrorists killed this year, 86, is also higher than the previous year's 62. Even in the counter-infiltration, the number of terrorists killed have been substantially higher, it is 45," he said.

The army commander noted that during the last one month, a "new" trend by the militants to push in more IEDs can be seen.

We are prepared for it,aware of the kind of inputs coming in-Lt.Gen Subrata Saha,GOC,15 Corps on polling in J&K pic.twitter.com/a6wHmMTGLi

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"The trends that we have been noticing along the Line of Control. There has been a number of infiltration bids which have been foiled and the new trend we have noticed this time is this desperate bid to push in IEDs. It is absolutely new.

"Earlier, this month, on two occasions, four IEDs were recovered from just next to the LoC and that recovery has saved quite a catastrophic situation," he said.

Lt Gen Saha said the army had inputs about the attempts by the militants to disrupt the assembly election process in the state slated to begin from tomorrow.

"We have inputs of different districts, different tehsils. We are working on those inputs. They are generally in line with what has been coming in the past, so we are keeping track of that trends. We are having elections in two districts and we are prepared for that. In fact I am returning from these two places.

"We are much aware of the inputs coming in and will respond to all the challenges that will emerge," he said.