Indian commandos conducted surgical strikes on PoK terror launch pads
The Indian Army announced that it had carried out strikes on eight terror launch pads, in a night long operation across the Line of Control in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, which, officials claimed, exacted casualties in the “double digits.”
The operation to hit terrorist bases in a “pre-emptive counterstrike” were given the go-ahead a week ago, days after the attack on the Uri army base in which 19 Indian soldiers were killed.
The strikes were in locations spread over 200 kilometres, and were carried out by Para Special Forces and 'Ghatak' platoons of the local units.
Local commanders were given a free hand to select the targets that had been mapped in advance. The teams had already been moved to forward positions by helicopters, but no Indian Army chopper crossed the LoC.
Army started with artillery fire at a few locations including along the LoC at Uri. As the Pakistani troops focussed on retaliating, Indian commandos crawled across to the predetermined spots across the LoC.
The Union government had kept the Army strike across the Line of Control under the wraps, but had put the forces guarding the border on maximum alert two days ago.
The Army strike is a testimony that the LoC is back to being the preferred route by Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence and the Army to push militants into Indian territory.
In the past three years, officials recorded most of the infiltration attempts and ceasefire violations along the 197-km International Border, which runs along Jammu district.
In 2013, there was massive displacement of Jammu’s villagers along the border. From November 2015, however, the focus shifted back to the LoC and this year alone, the Army has thwarted more than 20 attempts.
The Border Security Force (BSF) guards the 2,308-km border with Pakistan, running from Gujarat to Jammu.
In Jammu, 192 km of the border, which is referred to as a working boundary by Pakistan, is manned by the BSF, while the remaining 8 km is secured by the Army. The LoC is entirely secured by the Army.