Indian Army crossed LoC to kill three Pakistani soldiers: Report

NEW DELHI: In retaliation to the killing of four Indian soldiers in ceasefire violation by Pakistan on Saturday, the Indian Army troops on Monday crossed over the Line of Control (LoC) and killed three Pakistani Army soldiers.

One Pakistani soldier was injured in the incident, ANI quoted Intelligence sources as saying.

However, there has been no official confirmation on the incident.

Four Indian Army soldiers, including a Major, were killed on December 23 in a ceasefire violation by the Pakistan Army on the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir's Rajouri district.

The officer killed has been identified as 32-year-old Major Moharkar Prafulla Ambadas of 120 Infantry Brigade, who hailed from Bhandara district of Maharashtra. He is survived by his wife Avoli Moharkar.

Other soldiers killed were 34-year-old Lance Naik Gurmail Singh from Amritsar, Punjab, who is survived by his wife Kuljit Kaur and a daughter, and 30 year-old Sepoy Pargat Singh of Karnal, Haryana who is survived by his wife Ramanpreet Kaur and a son.

When Indian Army conducted surgical strikes

The daring act of the Indian Army comes a year after the Indian soldiers on the intervening night of September 28 and 29 of 2016, carried out surgical strikes on terror launch pads across the LoC with Army operations causing 'significant casualties to terrorists and those providing support to them.'

On the strikes carried out by the Army, the DGMO Lt General Ranbir Singh had then said, "Based on receiving specific and credible inputs that some terrorist teams had positioned themselves at launch pads along LoC to carry out infiltration and conduct terrorist strikes inside Jammu and Kashmir and in various metros in other states, the Indian Army conducted surgical strikes at several of these launch pads to pre-empt infiltration by terrorists. The operations were focussed on ensuring that these terrorists do not succeed in their design to cause destruction and endanger the lives of our citizens."

Ceasefire violation incidents in 2017

According to information given to Parliament by the government, 771 ceasefire violations were reported on the LoC up to December 10 this year and 110 on the International Border till November 30.

A total of 30 people - 12 civilians, 14 Army personnel and four Border Security Force (BSF) personnel - were killed in these ceasefire violations.

Ceasefire violations on the LoC, under operational control of Army, this year were threefold higher compared to 228 in 2016. There were 152 ceasefire violations in 2015 and 153 in 2014 on the LoC.

However, there was a steep decline in ceasefire violations on the IB, manned by BSF, compared to 221 incidents in 2016. A total of 253 ceasefire violation were reported on the IB in 2015 and 430 in 2014.

India shares a 3,323 km long border with Pakistan, of which 221 km of the IB and 740 km of the LoC fall in Jammu and Kashmir.