Srinagar, December 23: Indian and Pakistani border guards exchanged heavy fire at the international border between the two countries in Jammu and Kashmir on Monday evening. Pakistani border guards opened fire on Indian positions in Ramgarh sector to infiltrate terrorists, provoking the Indian side to retaliate, a Border Security Force (BSF) official said. This is the fifth ceasefire violation by Pakistan at the International Border (IB) and the Line of Control (LoC) since last week.
At 6pm, a BSF patrol party noticed militants at two posts — SM Pur and SM Pur-one — in Ramgarh sub-sector of Samba and challenged them, police said. Pakistani troops then opened fire and the BSF hit back, and the exchange between the two sides continued intermittently till 2am. The militants later fled.
“Later, we saw some vehicles moving, which we presume was to evacuate some casualties on other side. They opened fire on us to give cover to their men who were busy evacuating. The firing continued in intervals till 2 am. This morning, when we were busy doing a search operation, the other side again resorted to firing. This continued for one hour,” said K.Srinivasan, deputy inspector-general of BSF (G) at Delhi headquarters.
On Saturday, one BSF jawan died and two were injured in an attack by Pakistan at Krishnaghati sector of Poonch. On December 13, Pakistani “infiltrators” opened fire on BSF troops at Ballar post in Ram Nagar-Samba sector of the international border in Jammu. On Sunday, border outposts at Londi and Bobiya were targeted.
“Pakistani troops are violating the ceasefire for two reasons. They want to send more infiltrators and they want to deflect the attention from failures in Wazirstan,” said a senior security force officer.
There have been 110 ceasefire violations by Pakistan on the LoC and the IB since 2006.Of the 110 violations, three took place in 2006, 21 in 2007 and 77 in 2008. Nine violations have taken place till June 2009.
—Agencies