Army foils second infiltration bid in two days

JAMMU: Army on Saturday foiled a major attempt at infiltration, the second bid in last 24 hours, by militants to sneak across the Line of Control in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir, in which a jawan was killed.

A Northern Command spokesman said a group of unspecified number of militants had attempted to cross over into Indian territory through the Krishnaghati area of Poonch district around 9 am on Saturday.

On being challenged, the heavily armed militants exchanged fire with troops for 90 minutes, before retreating back to the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, the spokesman Col SD Goswami said.

The whole stretch of LoC in Poonch and adjoining Rajouri district has been reverberating to sound of heavy gun fire since last night, creating panic among the border villagers whether it was a clash between Indian and Pakistani forces.

The spokesman later clarified that the incident had happened almost on the LoC which generated such speculation.

He said the ceasefire between the two armies was holding.

The spokesman said an army jawan was killed and another wounded in the heavy firing by militants.

Saturday's incident comes just a day after when militants made a similar attempt to breach the LoC fencing in the adjoining Rajouri district, which too was foiled and militants forced to backtrack into PoK.