An Army jawan was killed while foiling an infiltration bid from across the Line of Control (LoC) in Gurez sector of Jammu and Kashmir’s Bandipore district overnight, officials here said on Thursday.
The brief exchange of small arms fire has been reported from the area close to R.C. Post on the Indian Army side along the de facto border around midnight on Wednesday night. Brigadier K.J.S. Dhillon at the Army’s 15 (Chinar) Corps headquarters here told this newspaper that the infiltrators were challenged by alert Indian troops before they could breach the LoC fence. He identified the slain jawan as Rifleman Chander Singh of 36 Rashtriya Rifles and said that the search of the area was underway. “We’ve found a warlike store left behind by the group of armed men which attempted to infiltrate into our side. The terrain of the area is very difficult and the details of the encounter and subsequent actions are still emerging,” the officer said. Defence spokesperson Lt. Col. J.S. Brar added, “Our alert boys at the forward post detected some suspicious movement during the night. When they challenged them, the infiltrators started firing in which a rifleman was killed. But his colleagues forced the infiltrators to make a quick retreat into PoK territory.”
The spokesperson also said that a pistol and a grenade were found at the site of the clash later. He did not know if the infiltrators also suffered any casualties as they had withdrawn from the scene.
Meanwhile, Army has reported yet another ceasefire violation by Pakistani troops in Krishnaghati sub-sector of Poonch district. It said in Jammu on Thursday that the Pakistani troops targeted several Indian posts with small arms fire late Wednesday night. It added that the firing that violates the November 2003 ceasefire agreement between the two sides came from Pakistan posts of Daku, Shiv and Battal on Indian posts of Kripan, Kranti and Kranti 1 between 10.15 and 10.30 pm on Wednesday and against around midnight which continued for about 35 minutes.