Two army porters killed in Pak firing along LoC in J&K

Two persons working as porters with the army were killed while three others sustained injured injuries when Pakistan Army fired mortars at forward posts along the Line of Control (LoC) in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir on Friday.

Officials said that Pakistan resorted to mortar shelling at around 11:30 am at Gulpur sector in Poonch near Khari Karmara along the LoC. The incident resulted into the death of two Army porters, who were identified as Muhammad Aslam and Altaf Hussain, they said.

Three more porters identified as Muhammad Saleem, Showkat Hussain and Muhammad Nawaz were also injured during the incident, the officials said and added the incident took place when the porters were busy in their day-to-day work.

The injured have been hospitalised and efforts are on to recover the bodies of the two porters who were killed.

According to official data, there were 3,289 ceasefire violations by Pakistan along the Indo-Pak border in 2019, virtually making the 2003 India-Pakistan border truce redundant. Of these, 1,565 violations took place since August 2019, after the Center abrogated Article 370 and bifurcated the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories.

“Pakistan increased ceasefire violations following the Balakot airstrikes on February 27 and subsequently after J&K’s special status was withdrawn on August 5,” a senior army officer told DH.

He said the high number of ceasefire violations were linked to attempts by Pakistan to push militants into J&K under the covering fire.

Meanwhile, an explosion in Jangar area of Nowshehra sector in Rajouri district has caused injuries to an Army man. The injured Army man whose name couldn’t be ascertained was hospitalized where he is receiving treatment.