Jammu: A Junior Commissioned Officer was
injured as Pakistani troops pounded Indian posts with 15
rockets and opened indiscriminate machine gun fire along the
Line of Control in Poonch district in the "biggest" ceasefire
violation in Jammu and Kashmir.
There were 17 infiltration bids and nine truce violations
along the border this year. The last ceasefire violation
occurred on January 26 when Pakistani troops resorted to
unprovoked firing in Kanachak sub-sector of Jammu.
Pakistani troops fired 15 under-barrel grenade launcher
rockets on five Indian forward defence locations from its
eight border posts along the LoC in Krishna Gati sub-sector of
Poonch district at around 18:15 hours last night, Brigadier
General Staff, 16 Corps, Brig Gurdeep Singh said on Sunday.
It was followed by the heavy firing by machine guns on
the forward posts, he said, adding "the heavy and
indiscriminate firing continued for two hours".
The rockets missed the intended target and exploded near
the posts, he said adding that one JCO Subedar P C Thakur of
17 Mahar Regiment was wounded and taken to a hospital.
Indian troops fired from small arms weapons and
intermittent exchanges ended early today, he said.
"It was for the first time such a large number of rockets
were fired and also several Pakistani posts were involved in
the firing with heavy weapons," Brig Gurdeep said.
"This is biggest ceasefire violation so far. We will
lodge a strong protest with our Pakistani counterparts at a
flag meeting today," he said.
The aim of the firing by Pakistani troops was to give
cover to infiltrating militants, officials said adding,
however, their objective was not successful as all the border
posts were alerted.
"Pakistani forward posts were instrumental in
facilitating infiltration into Indian territory," BSF DIG S
Sagwan had said earlier.
Information from various security agencies involved in
security grid in Jammu and Kashmir has put figure of
infiltration attempts at 433 in 2009, which is 91 attempts
more than 2008.
As per the police figures, 342 infiltration attempts were
made from across the border in 2008, while 2007 and 2006
reported 535 and 573 such attempts along LoC and IB in Jammu
and Kashmir, where over 100 militants managed to sneak in.
The BSF had said infiltration attempts along the border
is up and measures have been taken by security forces to foil
these bids as it is an area of concern at a time when violence
has gone down in Jammu and Kashmir.
Addressing the Chief Ministers` Conference on Internal
Security in New Delhi earlier this month, Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh had said though there has been a marked decline
in the number of terrorist incidents from 2008 to 2009 in
Jammu and Kashmir, infiltration levels have shown an increase
in the same period and "recently there have been some
incidents which are disturbing."
PTI
