Heights And Hazards

Pakistan has been exploiting India’s geographical disadvantage in Poonch

- Tariq Bhat

On October 28 last year, the Pakistan army attacked a forward post of the Indian Army at Machil sector in Kupwara and killed rifleman Mandeep Singh of the 17th Sikh Regiment. Then, they mutilated his body.

A month earlier, the Army had carried out covert strikes in Pakistanoccupied Kashmir in response to the militant attack on the Army’s brigade headquarters at Uri in Baramulla district, in which 19 soldiers were killed and as many injured. To avenge Mandeep’s death, the Army adopted a different tactic. It identified a Pakistan army post on the Line of Control and then pounded it by putting a 155mm Bofors artillery gun in “pistol mode”. The post was decimated, and six Pakistani soldiers, including a captain, were killed. Mandeep’s killing was avenged.

On May 1 this year, Pakistan army struck again, beheading and mutilating the bodies of two Indian soldiers, Head Constable Prem Sagar of the Border Security Force and Naib Subedar Paramjit Singh of the 22nd Sikh Regiment, after ambushing a joint patrol at Krishna Ghati sector in Poonch district. The attack came a day after Pakistan army chief Qamar Bajwa visited the troops on the LoC and vowed to support “the Kashmiris’ struggle against India”.