Srinagar: Pakistan border guards resorted to unprovoked firing from small arms to target Indian forward posts and civilian areas along the International Border (IB) in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kathua district on Monday. However, there were no immediate reports of casualties, officials said in Jammu.
They said that the Pakistan Rangers fired from small arms to target the Border Outposts (BoPs) and villages in Chadwal belt of Hiranagar sector of Kathua.
The Border Security Forces manning these BoPs responded to the ceasefire violation from across the border “strongly and befittingly”, using the same calibre weapons, the officials said. They added that the exchange of fire continued for some time.
On Sunday, an Army jawan was killed in Pakistani troops firing on the Indian posts in Uri sector of the Line of Control (LoC) in Baramulla district. The Army had said that the Pakistani troops violated the ceasefire understanding by resorting to unprovoked firing on Indian posts in Uri sector and that the Indian Army gave a befitting reply to Pakistani firing.
In a similar clash on October 11, an Army jawan was injured when Pakistani troops resorted to ‘unprovoked’ firing and shelling along the LoC in Rajouri district. He died in a military hospital in Udhampur the same evening. Pakistan had a day earlier (October 10) said that one of its Army soldiers was killed in the Indian firing along the de facto border.
Army officials said that on October 3, the Pakistan Army had targeted the Indian forward positions and civilian areas along the LoC and the IB in Poonch and Kathua districts and also resorted to heavy weaponry firing and mortar shelling in LoC’s Shahpur and Gotriya areas.
Meanwhile, the police on Monday said that ‘guides’ working for militants were arrested by the security forces along with arms and ammunition in Valley’s central district of Ganderbal at the weekend. They said that the security forces on a tip off while searching woods in Naranag area of Ganderbal arrested the duo and also recovered two AK rifles with four magazines and four grenades. The duo belonged to frontier district of Rajouri and was working for a group of five militants who had sneaked into Kashmir Valley from across the LoC last month, the police sources said.
The Trumkhal area up Naranag had witnessed the longest encounter of the year last month in which two suspected militants were killed.
