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LoC skirmish claims soldier’s life

NEW DELHI: Pakistan-based jihadists launched fresh assaults on Indian forward positions along the Line of Control over the weekend, leading to skirmishes which have claimed the life of at least one soldier.

BSF head constable Bhanwar Lal was killed at Mukhiari Post in the Rajouri sector on Tuesday morning, after the position was attacked by jihadists armed with rocket launchers, under- barrel grenade-launchers and automatic rifles.

Army sources said the fighting in Rajouri began on July 19, when BSF personnel at Doaba Post were engaged by two groups of jihadists from across a mountain stream that runs along the LoC. BSF soldiers were first hit with a rocket, followed by fire from assault weapons.

Although Pakistan army positions on the other side of the stream did not become involved in the shooting, no apparent effort was made to compel the jihadist units to cease fire.

Late on Monday night, a jihadist group succeeded in crossing the LoC to within 30 metres of Mukhiari Post, which is located on a densely-forested peak designated Point 2717 on India maps. Again, the jihadist group fired on a bunker at Mukhari Post with a rocket launcher, killing Lal. BSF troops returned the fire but the jihadists retreated under cover of darkness.

Lal is the second Indian soldier who died in the intermittent skirmishes which have erupted along the LoC since February, straining a historic ceasefire that went into effect in 2003.

Over a dozen clashes have taken place this year, in what Indian strategists believe are a calibrated Pakistan army effort to ratchet up tensions on the LoC and thus justify pulling out troops from its unsuccessful—and internally unpopular — counter-terrorism operations in the North West Frontier Province. Much of the most intense fighting has taken place along the LoC in Rajouri and Poonch.

Last month, four Pakistani soldiers were killed near the town of Hajira, in the course of intense day-long fighting which broke out after the Indian Army’s Gurkha Rifles’ 2nd Battalion fired on a jihadist assault group in the Krishna Ghati sector of Poonch. Pakistan at first reported that the soldiers were shot by unidentified gunmen—indicative of an accidental exchange of fire between the jihadists and its troops—but later charged India with the killings.

In May, 8 Gurkha Rifles soldier Jawashwar Lami Chhame, a Nepali serving in the Indian army, was killed when jihadists shelled an Indian forward post near Salhotri village, between Krishna Ghati and Mendhar in Poonch.

Fighting along the LoC intensified last week, in the build-up to high-level India-Pakistan talks. Indian troops reported three attacks on forward positions on July 17, targeting posts in the Gurez area of northern Kashmir and the Bhimbar Gali mountains in Poonch. One soldier was injured in the attacks, which were reported to have involved the use of mortar.

Pakistani and Indian commanders have held several flag meetings in an effort to end the fighting, which many fear will subvert the keystone of the détente process . However, efforts to end the fighting have so far had no lasting results, although both sides have refrained from using artillery — common before 2003.

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