Army, infiltrators exchange sporadic fire, no fresh casualty

Army personnel and a group of heavily armed terrorists backed by suspected Pakistan Army Special Forces troopers exchanged sporadic fire along the Line of Control in Keran sector of Jammu and Kashmir for the tenth day today but there was no fresh report any casualty.

Intermittent firing between the 30-40 infiltrators and the Army continued throughout the night as security forces maintained a tight vigil over the cordoned off area, defence sources said.

Five Indian soldiers have been injured in the gunbattle that started on September 24, while 10 to 12 terrorists were believed killed in the operation launched to foil the major infiltration bid.

Army had yesterday termed as "absurd" the reports about capture of some Indian posts by the infiltrators, saying the troops are in total control of the operation.

"We are in total control of the operation. The reports of our posts being captured by the infiltrators are absurd," General Officer Commanding of the Army's 15 Corps Lt General Gurmit Singh had said.

Although Lt Gen Singh maintained it will be premature to say whether the Pakistan Army was involved in infiltration, he said there were definite indications that some special troops were part of it.

He said the analysis of this infiltration bid indicated the involvement of Border Action Team (BAT), a mixture of Pakistani regulars and militants.

In Islamabad, a Pakistan military spokesperson today dismissed as "baseless" that its Army troops were involved in infiltration attempts.

Army sources said here the infiltrators carried out the attempt at the time when Army's 20 Kumaon battalion was being replaced by the 3/3 Gorkha Rifles unit in the Keran sector.

The terrorists and their suspected Pakistan Army accomplices were holding on to their positions and are understood to have taken refuge in some abandoned old bunkers of the Army.

In the last major action by Pakistan Army BAT, an Indian Army patrol was attacked in the Poonch sector coinciding with the change of guard.