Infiltration bid foiled along LoC, two killed

Srinagar: The Army on Friday said that it had stopped an infiltration attempt backed by the Pakistan Army along the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu Kashmir’s Uri sector by killing two intruders.

A defence spokesman in Srinagar said that the slain intruders, believed to be members of a Pakistan Army Border Action Team (BAT), had crossed the de facto border and were very close to an Indian Army post located 600 metres from the LoC. “The BAT action against the Indian Army patrol along the LoC in Uri sector was foiled. Two BAT terrorists have been killed. The operation continues,” Army spokesman Col. Rajesh Kalia said in a statement.

Army sources said that after the infiltration was detected, defensive systems near an Indian forward post were activated. With it a “quick reaction team” of the Indian Army moved in to intercept the infiltrators who apparently wanted to target the Army patrol presumably in similar fashion two Indian soldiers were beheaded in Krishna Ghati sector of the de facto border in Poonch district on May 1, sources said.

The sources said that the QRT quietly moved behind the infiltrators and shot them dead from a close range. The bodies of the infiltrators were later recovered along with an AK 47 rifle and one pistol, and subsequently handed over to the J&K police, the sources said. After the incident, heavy exchange of fire was reported from the area.

In Muzaffarabad, the officials said that a woman was killed when a mortar shell fired by the Indian troops landed in a private house at Naali, a village in Bhimber district of the PoK.

Bhimber’s DC Chaudhary Guftaar Hussain identified the slain woman as 60-year-old Farzand Begum. The officials alleged that the Indian troops targeted civilian areas falling close to the LoC’s  Samahni sector in “unprovoked” firing which began at 3 am (local time). They also claimed that with the latest death the toll in the recent incidents of cross-LoC firing in PoK has risen to three whereas, at least, thirty other civilians have been injured.

On May 1, India had said that the Pakistan’s BAT mutilated the bodies of Naib Subedar Paramjeet Singh and BSF head-constable Prem Sagar after killing them and injuring BSF jawan Rajendra Kumar in Krishna Ghati sector along the LoC. In 2013, the BAT had beheaded Lance Naik Hemraj in the same sector.

Though Islamabad had strongly denied the involvement of its army in such brutal acts, the Indian Army officials say that BAT teams, composed of highly-trained Pakistani Special Services Group (SSG) commandos in addition to Jihadi fighters, operate in a depth of one to three kilometres of the de facto border. They apart from AK-47 rifles use Swiss-made snow clothing and snow boots, Digital Navigation Consoles like Skype and VoIP during their operations.

The sources also said that neither of the men killed on Friday was carrying a rucksack which suggests they were not ordinary infiltrators but members of a BAT team assigned to target the Indian border patrol and then flee back to PoK.