21.8.11

Somewhere on the LoC....



A 26-year-old Army lieutenant and a dozen heavily armed Pakistani terrorists were killed in an encounter triggered after the group was spotted trying to cross a river into the Indian territory in a boat along the Line of Control in North Kashmir’s Bandipora district on Saturday. This was the biggest infiltration bid this year and comes in a season that generally sees an increase in such attempts before terrorists are snowed in for winter months across the LoC in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. There have been eight infiltration attempts this month. Defence spokesman Lt Col J S Brar identified the officer as Lt Navdeep Singh commissioned into the Army Ordnance Corps five months ago. “He was serving in the Maratha Light Infantry’s 15th Battalion,” he said. He said two soldiers were also injured in the encounter. Lt Col Brar said the terrorists were using a boat to infiltrate perhaps for the first time. “This is certainly a new development. The terrorists were also carrying an inflatable five-man dinghy,” he said. The spokesman said six slain terrorists fell into the river while as many were killed near its banks. “Five AK rifles, one pistol, two boats, 50 assorted grenades, two radio sets, two compasses and one Global Positioning System besides a large quantity of war like stores were recovered from the scene till the reports last came in,” he said. “The operation is still on to comb the neighbouring dense forests in the area.” But overall militant violence has dipped to an alltime low along with the cross-LoC infiltration in the last few years. Officials credit fencing and high-tech equipment installed along the LoC for the turnaround.

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