New Delhi/Srinagar: A soldier was killed and four others, including a captain, were injured as the Army foiled an attack on Saturday by “Pakistan’s Border Action Team (BAT)” in the Kamakari sector of north Kashmir’s Kupwara district, military sources said.
They said a Pakistani intruder was also killed in the exchange of fire, while two more managed to return to Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK) amid the intense gunfight that lasted for hours.
The BAT generally comprises “special forces personnel of the Pakistan Army and terrorists”.
“Action by Border Action Team has been foiled by Indian Army troops on Saturday morning in Kamakari sector,” one of the sources said.
Security in the Union territory has been tightened following a recent uptick in terror attacks there. In the Jammu region alone, attacks in Rajouri, Poonch, Reasi, Udhampur, Kathua and Doda districts have claimed 22 lives, including that of 11 security personnel and a village defence guard member, this year.
As part of its attempt to beef up security in Jammu, the government is sending two BSF battalions, comprising more than 2,000 personnel, from Odisha, according to sources.
The decision to “immediately” move the two units from the anti-Naxal operations grid was taken in the wake of the recent spate of terror attacks in the Jammu region, they told PTI.
In the attack on Saturday morning in Kupwara, a Srinagar-based defence spokesperson said, the intruders crossed the LoC taking advantage of the bad weather and poor visibility in the area and fired on a forward Army post from proximity.
According to the sources, the group of three intruders hurled a grenade and opened fire on a forward post near the Kumkadi post in the Trehgam sector of the north Kashmir district.
The troops retaliated, triggering a gunfight between the two sides, the sources said, adding that five soldiers were injured in the encounter and one of them later succumbed to injuries.
They said the injured Army personnel, including the captain, were evacuated to the Base Hospital in Srinagar.
In a statement, the defence spokesperson said the identification and affiliation of the slain Pakistani intruder was being ascertained.
One of the soldiers who suffered severe injuries in the gunfight is responding well to treatment and is stable at present, he added. The soldier who died was identified as rifleman Mohit Rathour.
The official said that “in the past too, similar attempts by infiltrators, actively aided and abetted by the Pakistani Army, have exploited thick foliage and poor visibility conditions, but have always been successfully thwarted and disrupted.”
The Indian Army is “firm in its resolve and commitment to maintain the sanctity of the LoC and defeat the nefarious and inimical designs of the Pakistani side,” he added.
