In a major provocative act, a foot patrol of the Indian Army was targeted from across the line of Control in Poonch district resulting in the killing of one Indian jawan in an IED blast while another sepoy was injured in Balnoi battalion area on Saturday.
In the meantime, in a related incident a joint team of local Rashtriya Rifle unit and J&K Police recovered a huge cache of arms and ammunition near Sukhni Nala in Doda district.According to ground reports, “An Improvised Explosive Device (IED) went off around 4.05 pm in Balnoi battalion area injuring two soldiers who were passing through the area on routine patrol duty on Saturday.”
Tensions between India and Pakistan are thus further set to escalate following fresh hostilities and targeting of civilian areas on the Indian side of the line of Control in Poonch.A teenager was killed due to splinter injuries in Sawjian area of Poonch on Friday while four others were injured in heavy mortar shelling from Pakistan’s Cobra post located at a height of over 13,000 ft from sea level.
Defence PRO in Jammu lt Col Munish Mehta said, “One of the injured soldiers identified as Sepoy Akshaya Godbole succumbed to his injuries while another soldier Sepoy Shubham Khadatkar was rushed to the Government hospital in Rajouri for immediate treatment.”
The Indian Army authorities, however, remained tight lipped over the sequence of events leading to an IED blast along the loC.
A senior Army officer said, “It is a matter of investigation to ascertain the fact as to how an IED blast took place near the loC.” He said at this point it is difficult to say whether jawans of the Pakistani Army triggered IED blast or a group of infiltrators had come near the loC with assistance from the Pakistani Army to plant an IED device meant for targeting an Indian patrol in the area.
As for the recovery of arms and ammunition, the PRO said based on specific input the joint teams seized war like stores including one 9mm Chinese pistol, two magazine, two AK-47 magazines, seven rounds 9mm ammunition, 15 rounds 7.65mm lMG rounds, 256 rounds 7.62 mm AK, 17 UBGl grenades, four rounds HMG, two PIKA, two explosive grenades, two Radio Set, one Walkie Talkie, one Binocular. Defence PRO said one document includes letter pad of leT and books printed in Sialkot were recovered from the hideout in Doda.