India claims killing of three Pakistani soldiers

 

New Delhi: The Indian Army carried out a cross border operation, killing three Pakistani soldiers in Jammu and Kashmir’s Rawlakot sector last night, Army sources said.

The strike by a small group of four-five Indian soldiers is seen as avenging killing of four Indian Army personnel in a ceasefire violation by Pakistan on Saturday.

The small team went around 200-300 metres inside the Line of Control and carried out the strike, the sources said. The firing took place around 6 pm yesterday.

“One Pakistani soldier was also injured in the operation,” said the source.

The cross-LoC raid, for which government sources aren’t yet using the term ‘surgical strikes’, was meant to avenge the death of four Indian soldiers in cross-border firing by Pakistani troops earlier this week.

The sources said that at least four Pakistani soldiers died in Monday’s cross-LoC operation, the number is likely to be higher.

Indian troops penetrated deep indide across the Line of Control and the modus operandi used was an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) ambush followed by gunfire.

Indian soldiers first laid an ambush trap by setting up IEDs across the LoC. Then, the Pakistani unit was hit with light machine gun and assault rifle fire, resulting in at least four fatalities. The entire operation took around 45 minutes, the sources said.

The decision to launch the cross-LoC raid, reminiscent of last year’s post-Uri attack ‘surgical strikes’, was taken at the “tactical level” by the local commander, sources said.

This was not a one-off action, the sources added, warning that similar operations could be carried out if Pakistan, once again, carries out similar attacks on Indian troops.

Monday’s strikes were launched in response to four Indian soldiers, including an Army major, dying in unprovoked Pakistani firing along the LoC in the Keri sector of Jammu and Kashmir’s Rajouri district.

The strikes also came on the same day when Kulbhushan Jadhav, a former Indian Navy officer languishing on death row in Pakistan, met his wife and mother at the Foreign Office in Islamabad. The meeting was arranged by Pakistan as a “humanitarian gesture”.

Jadhav is accused in Pakistan of being an Indian spy and of fomenting terrorism in the restive Balochistan region. India has strongly refuted the Pakistani allegations and the International Court of Justice has stayed his execution. (with PTI inputs)

 

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