In an audacious attack on an area domination patrol of the Indian Army, a heavily-armed Border Action Team (BAT) of the Pakistani army, supported by a group of trained militants, attacked five Indian soldiers and injured another in Jammu.
This is the second major provocation from Pakistan after the January 8, 2013 beheading of an Indian soldier in Mendhar sector of Poonch.
The attack, which took place in the wee hours of Tuesday in Gulpur near Chakan-da-bagh in Poonch district of Jammu, is likely to cast its shadow on the Indo-Pak dialogue process slated to get on track in the coming weeks.
According to ground reports from Poonch, a BAT team comprising soldiers of the Pakistan Army and suspected terrorists belonging to lashkar-e-Tayyeba (leT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), dressed in Pakistan Army uniform, breached the line of Control (loC) in Gulpur area and came at least 400 metres inside Indian territory before ambushing an Indian patrol heading towards Sarla post near Chakan-da-bagh (transit point for cross loC trade) in Poonch between 1.30 and 2 am.
According to Defence sources, the patrol party was caught off guard while they were moving between two forward posts along the line of control near Sarla post.
“They were fired upon from three different directions in a meticulously planned strike as the area is seldom used for infiltrating armed militants inside the Indian territory,” a Defence official said.
This was one reason the strength of the area domination patrol was not in tune with the standard operating procedures of the Indian Army, Defence sources said.
The BAT team had also taken advantage of the poor weather conditions in the thickly-forested area along the loC before mounting an attack on the patrol party. According to official sources: “Four jawans of the 21 Bihar Regiment and one jawan of the Maratha light Infantry were martyred in the attack.”
The deceased jawans have been identified as Subedar Raghunandan Prasad, lance Naik Shambhu Saran Ray, Naik Vijay Kumar Ray, Naik Premnath Singh from Bihar and Naik Mane Kundlik Kerba of Maratha light Infantry hailing from Maharashtra.
From the Pakistani side, soldiers of the 801 Mujahid Regiment carried out the attack along with a group of suspected militants. The issue rocked both Houses of Parliament in New Delhi with leaders cutting across party lines demanding firm action against Pakistan. Sensing the mood of the Parliamentarians the Indian Government lodged a strong protest at the diplomatic level.
“Pakistan's Deputy High Commissioner Mansoor Ahmed Khan was summoned by Joint Secretary in Ministry of External Affairs Rudrendra Tandon in South Block and given a strong diplomatic message,” official sources said.
later in the afternoon, in a statement Defence Minister AK Antony said: “This action is a likely consequence of the frustration of the terrorists and Pakistan Army due to successful elimination of 19 hardcore terrorists in the recent months of July and August along the loC and in the hinterland of J&K”.
He said the effective counter-infiltration grid on the loC foiled 17 infiltration bids this year, resulting in killing of 13 hardcore Pakistan-trained terrorists. The numbers of such attempts have doubled this year in comparison to the corresponding period of 2012.
“Pakistan Army's desperation is also evident in the substantial increase in the number of ceasefire violations this year. There have been 57 ceasefire violations this year which is almost 80 per cent more than the violations last year,” Antony added.
Early in the morning J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah confirmed reports of the attack by writing on a micro blogging site. “(I) was briefed early this morning about the news that five of our soldiers had been killed on the loC. My heartfelt condolences to the next of kin. These incidents don't help efforts to normalize or even improve relations with Pakistan and call into question the Pakistani Government's recent overtures.”
Meanwhile, the Indian Army has alerted all its troops along the loC as Intelligence agencies have been warning that fresh attacks on the security forces may happen in the run up to Independence Day celebrations across the State.