Pakistani rangers yesterday violated ceasefire by resorting to brief firing along the international border in Arnia sub-sector, just hours before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s arrival in Jammu for an election rally.
“There was a few rounds of firing from Pakistani side on our positions in Pital border outpost area in Arnia sub-sector today,” a senior BSF officer said.
BSF troops, however, observed calm and did not retaliate, he said, adding, there were no reports of any casualty.
There was also a fresh gunbattle on Friday morning between security forces and terrorists in the Arnia sector in which a fourth militant, who was holed up in a bunker, was shot dead.
The firing ensued when security forces launched a cordon and search operation to track down a militant hiding in a bunker and retrieve bodies of civilians killed in Thursday’s gunbattle.
Arnia is about 110 km from Udhampur where PM Modi addressed a poll rally. He will later address a rally at Poonch, about 230 km from Jammu. It is worst affected by consistent cross LoC firing.
On Thursday, terrorists in military fatigues gunned down three army jawans and an equal number of civilians in a gunbattle in Arnia sector, 3km from the International Border (IB).
Four of the gunmen were also shot dead.
According to police and intelligence agencies, the men — numbering at least five to six — crossed over early in the morning under cover fire provided by Pakistan Rangers and reached Pindi village, 2 km from the IB.
Suspicious locals alerted the police and the group, moving on foot, was apprehended at a Territorial Army check-point. But the men didn’t stop, running into an abandoned army bunker nearby where they fired at civilians, killing two and injuring several. A third villager died later.
Arnia, which goes to polls on December 20, witnessed cross-border violence in October too with five people killed in the firing.
Last September, terrorists had snuck in across the border and killed 12 people, 10 of them security personnel, in Hiranagar, just 40 km from Arnia. That attack, too, had come a day after then PM Manmohan Singh’s meeting with Sharif in the US.
The state — witness this year to the worst cross-border shelling in a decade — was already on alert against terror attacks due to the polls.
Intelligence was received as recently as November 21, a day before PM Modi’s rally in Kishtwar, about possible strikes and this was communicated to all security officials.
