Srinagar: The army today said its operation against infiltrators at Keran sector on Line of Control (LoC) is on for the last nine days and its five soldiers have sustained injuries in the encounter.
Addressing a press conference here, General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the Army’s 15 Corps Lt General Gurmit Singh said the militants have been holed up in the cordoned area and the operation is under army’s control.
“The reports that some of our posts have been captured by infiltrators are absurd. However, our five soldiers are injured but they have been hospitalized, Lt Gen Singh said, adding that the army had a specific intelligence inputs which proved correct.
“From the strength and the multiple places they attempted to infiltrate suggest that there were some special troops. This is a different kind of infiltration which we have witnessed in the past,†he added.
The GOC 15 Corps said that it is the duty of the army to remain alert to take any kind of challenge and the army is showing its best professional capability to avoid any causality from its side. While referring to the media reports that some of the army posts were captured by militants, he said that it seems there are some vested interests who give inputs for the negative propaganda against the army.
He said it seems that the latest infiltration bid at Keran sector is an attempt by Border Action Team (BAT), a blend of Pakistani army and militants. The GOC said that the number of infiltrators is large. “Yesterday night some 10 to 12 militants tried to enter the cordoned area,†he added.
Asked if the army retrieved bodies of militants at Tangdhar it had claimed to be killed on September 26, Lt Gen Singh said that the dead bodies were not important for him but the operation was carried as per its plans.
Pertinently, some media reports had suggested that Pakistani soldiers on September 23 occupied Shala Bhata village in Keran sector during a routine rotation of troops on the Indian side. But an army spokesman said the soldiers foiled a massive infiltration bid by Pakistan-backed terrorists in the Keran sector last week, in which at least 12 terrorists were killed. He said the search for other militants, who might have sneaked into the village, was still on.
