SRINAGAR: The Border Security Force (BSF) on Thursday said that it shot dead an intruder along the International Border (IB) with Pakistan in Jammu and Kashmir’s Samba district, pre-empting a possible major infiltration bid.A BSF spokesman said in Jammu that at about 10.15 pm on Wednesday, the border guards noticed some suspicious movement near the Border Outpost Khoara in the Mangychak area of the Samba sector. “The movement of the person, aged about 45, was kept under observation. He was challenged when he walked into the Indian side of the border. He tried to flee but was shot dead”, the spokesman said.Inspector General of BSF, Jammu frontier, D K Boora while confirming it said, “The intruder tried to flee but was fired upon by the alert personnel and neutralised. The search of the area is still going on.”Mr. Boora after visiting the area told reporters, “It seems the intruder was deliberately sent to gauge the possible gap to be utilised later to push armed terrorists. But this operation is an achievement and a lesson that anyone trying to step his foot on the Indian soil with nefarious design will meet the same fate as that of the intruder.”The officials said the body of the intruder was recovered near the border fence but nothing objectionable was recovered from his person. They added that his identity is being ascertained and, meanwhile, the corpse has been handed over to the J&K police for postmortem and other legal formalities.Last week, an Army officer and four jawans were injured while repulsing an attack possibly by a Pakistani Border Action Team (BAT) at a forward military post along the Line of Control (LoC) in the Kamkari area in the Machael sector of the Kashmir Valley’s Kupwara district. One of them, Rifleman Mohit Rathour, succumbed at the Army’s 92-Base Hospital in Srinagar’s Badami Bagh Cantonment later.On July 23, Lance Naik Subash Chander laid down his life while fighting infiltrating militants after they breached the LoC and sneaked into J & K from PoJK in the Battal area of Poonch district.This was followed by a fierce gunfight between a group of militants and the security forces at Trimukha Top in Kupwara’s Kowut area-also close to the LoC- in which a Non-Commissioned Officer of the Indian Army Dilawar Khan and a militant were killed.On July 25, Army Chief General Upendra Dwivedi visited forward areas along the LoC in the Kashmir Valley’s Keran sector which had witnessed, at least, two back-to-back infiltrations bids earlier during the month to review the security situation. The Army Chief, apart from interacting with the officers and jawans defending the Kashmir frontier reviewed the preparedness of the armed forces involved in counter-infiltration and counter-terror operations, officials had said.General Dwivedi had on July 3, days after taking over as the new Army Chief, overflown the LoC in Poonch district and later closeted with senior military officers at the headquarters of the 93 Infantry Brigade in the strategic town of Poonch and also in Jammu to review the operational preparedness in the J&K frontier.While The 776-km- long LoC is the responsibility of the Indian Army with some BSF battalions placed under its operational control, the BSF is independently tasked to guard the 198-km stretch of the India-Pakistan border in Jammu region. Being part of the 2,912 km India-Pakistan border from Gujarat to J&K, it starts at Paharpur in Kathua district and ends at Chicken’s Neck corridor in Akhnoor sector (Jammu district) where the LoC begins. In India, this 198-km stretch of the borderline is called International Border (IB) but is known as ‘Working Boundary’ in Pakistan as it passes through a “disputed region”. In public parlance it is often referred to as ‘Sialkot-Jammu border’, however.
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