By IANS
Jammu : An Indian soldier was killed Sunday in what has been officially described as “hostile fire” near the Line of Control (LoC) with Pakistan.
However, some officials said that it was “fire from across the border”, exactly four years after India and Pakistan declared a ceasefire in 2003.
Brigadier General Staff (BGS) of Information and Warfare in Northern command Abhijit Guha said that an Indian Army soldier died in firing on Nangi Tekri post in mountainous Poonch district, about 220 km Northwest of Jammu.
“All we can say at the moment is that it was a hostile fire that killed the soldier, and investigations have been ordered to find out what sort of firing it was,” Guha told IANS.
He however declined to define the “hostile fire” and neither denied or confirmed if the fire was from across the LoC by the Pakistani army or by the infiltrators.
However an army official from 16 Corps in Nagrota near Jammu under whose command the Poonch area comes said that the fire that killed the trooper “is the violation of ceasefire from Pakistan”.
“It (the fire) seems a violation of ceasefire between India and Pakistan as the fire had come from across the LoC and it is almost confirmed that it was fired by Pakistani troops,” the official said on condition of anonymity.
India and Pakistan declared ceasefire on the frontiers on mid-night of Nov 25-26 in 2003.
Since then, the two sides have obeyed the ceasefire though the General-Officer-Commanding-in-Chief (GOC-in-C) of Northern Command, Lt. Gen. H.S. Panag had told a news conference recently that “both sides have by and large obeyed the ceasefire but I do not deny some unintentional fire that cannot be termed as breach of ceasefire”.
This is the first incident that has put question mark on the ceasefire after emergency was declared in Pakistan Nov 3.