Abid Bashir
Srinagar (NVI): A 60-year-old man was killed in Mendhar sector of Poonch while six other civilians were injured in Tangdhar Sector of Kupwara district along LoC in Jammu and Kashmir as Pakistani troops targeted residential areas while firing mortars and other weapons, a senior defence official said.
The elderly man who succumbed to the splinter injuries belonged to Tain Mankote village in Mendhar sector of Poonch, they said.
The Indian Army was giving a befitting response as Pakistan was targeting civilian areas, said Colonel Rajesh Kalia, Srinagar-based Defence spokesperson of the Army.
Apart from that, Pakistan also initiated heavy fire along LOC in Karnah and Uri sectors of North Kashmir’s Kupwara and Baramulla districts respectively, officials said.
They said that Indo-Pak armies exchanged small and heavy fire in Gabra, Hajitra, Sadhpora, Dhani area of Karnah sector in Kupwara district, triggering panic among locals who rushed to safer places. “We locked ourselves inside our homes for the safety,” one of the residents said.
Officials said that in Boniyar, Uri area of North Kashmir, Pakistan launched heavy artillery in wee hours today following which the Indian Army also retaliated.
Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Baramulla Abdul Qayoom said that the shelling took place in the Uri sector of Baramulla. “There was no loss of life and property reported so far,” he said.
Three incidents of heavy exchange of firing along the LoC have been reported today–first at Balakote sector in Poonch district and then Uri in Baramulla, followed by Keran in Kupwara.
-ARK
