The Army said on Sunday that Pakistani troops violated the ceasefire twice in the past 24 hours by targeting Indian forwards posts along the Line of Control (LoC) with small arms, machine-gun and mortar fire in Jammu and Kashmir’s Poonch district.
“First, they opened fire on our forwards posts along the LoC in Krishna Ghati, Balakote and Hamirpur areas around 11.45 pm on Saturday and then again in Mendhar sector at 2 pm on Sunday. Our jawans have retaliated effectively,” a defence spokesperson said. Sund-ay’s was the 20th violation of the November 2003 India-Pakistan ceasefire agreement in August and Army officials say it has “lost its meaning”. The Indian troops, they said, have retaliated “strongly” to the Pakistani firing which should send the message across that no such action would be tolerated . No casualties were reported on the Indian side.
Defence spokesperson S.N. Acharya said the Paki-stani troops used heavy calibre weaponry, mortars and rockets, to target Indian positions. He said as many as 13 ceasefire violations have taken place in the past eight days.