An Army jawan and his wife were killed and their three daughters injured when the Pakistani Army targeted forward posts and hamlets along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir’s Poonch district, police said on July 8, 2017.
The Pakistan Army violated the ceasefire and initiated indiscriminate firing from small arms, automatic weapons and mortars from 6.30 a.m. on July 8, 2017 on Indian Army posts along the LoC, a defence spokesperson added. Indian troops returned the fire strongly and effectively, he said.
Sepoy Mohmmad Shaukat of the Territorial Army, who was on leave, and his wife Safia Bi were killed when a mortar shell fired by the Pakistan Army exploded near their home in Karmara, a police officer said.
The couple’s three daughters, Zaida Kouser (6), Robina Kouser (12) and Nazia Bi, and another person were injured. Pakistani troops rained mortar bomb shells and resorted to heavy firing, targeting civilian villages. “Very heavy shelling is going on in areas like Khadi, Karmara and Guplur,” he said.
The Pakistan Army is firing and shelling heavily from eight different posts on villages and forward posts along the LoC. They have fired at five to six hamlets, the officer said.
There have been 23 incidents of ceasefire violation, an attack by Pakistan special forces team and two infiltration bids in June 2017, in which four people including three jawans were killed and 12 were injured.
On June 29, two Indian Army jawans were injured when the Pakistani troops fired from small arms and shelled mortars on forward posts and civilian areas along the LoC in Poonch district.
Even on Eid-ul Fitr on June 26, the Pakistani Army fired small arms and automatic weapons and shelled mortars along the LoC in the Bhimbher Gali sector of Rajouri.
On June 22, a Pakistani special forces team sneaked across the LoC into Poonch under cover of heavy fire and killed two jawans — 34-year-old Naik Jadhav Sandip of Aurangabad and 24-year-old Sepoy Mane Savan Balku of Kolhapur.
One Pakistani soldier was also killed. Pakistan’s Border Action Team comprises its army’s special forces personnel and terrorists.
3 Army personnel injured in militant attack
Meanwhile, three Army personnel, including a Captain, were injured when militants fired at a patrol team in Bandipora district, police said on Saturday. The militants opened indiscriminate fire on the Army patrol at Hajin in Bandipora late last night, a police official said.
The militants managed to escape under the cover of darkness, he added. The injured were admitted to the 92 Base Hospital in Srinagar.
