Nearly 15 months after India openly came out to claim cross border raid—commonly known as Surgical Strike—a Ghatak Commandos of Poonch Brigade, crossed over to Line of Control on Sunday evening to take avenge of killing of four Indian Army men including a Major rank officer by Pakistani army's 'unprovoked action'.
Confirming this to THE WEEK, a senior defence ministry official said, “It was a local tactical level action taken by the local commanders of the Brigade level. It was a short distance raid about 200-300 metres inside the LoC.”
Army sources claim that Sunday's strike was in retaliation to the Pakistan army's action, in which they infiltrated into Indian side by nearly 400 meters to target Indian army soldiers.
“It was a tit for tat action involving selective targeting. Such actions do not last very long. The commandos targeted a group of Pakistani soldiers on patrol near a temporary post. An explosion was triggered near the Pakistani patrol, which may have led to killing of Pakistani soldiers," the officer added. The targeted post is of 59 Baloch regiment under 2 PoK Brigade also called as Rawalkot Brigade of the Pakistan army. There were at least three confirmed casualties and one injured, but unconfirmed reports claim casualties could be more.
Major Moharkar Prafulla Ambadas, Lance Naik Gurmail Singh, Sepoy Gurmeet Singh and Sepoy Pargat Singh—belong to 2 Sikh Regiment and posted in Chingus area of Rajouri—were killed in the Border Action Team action carried out by the regulars of Pakistan army along with militants on Saturday.
"Idea to carry out cross border raid was to send a signal to Pakistani army that we can also resort to such tactics. In an hour long raid on Sunday evening, no Indian soldier sustained injuries," the officer said. A team of five Ghatat commandos launched the offensive around 6 pm on Sunday by Poonch Brigade under 25 Division.
An officer maintained that such tactical level operations keep happening on the border, especially when situation is volatile.
Recently, army chief General Bipin Rawat has told in a public event that Indian Army will not hesitate to repeat surgical strikes. "The surgical strike was conducted to send a message and if our adversaries do not understand, it will be repeated,” the Army chief reportedly said.
Pakistan army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa had said last week that he would support any initiative of the civilian government to resolve issues with India through talks. Pakistan army chief's statement was seen as a contradiction by the Indian military establishment because its army has violated the ceasefire along the International Border and the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir more than 720 times this year, the highest in past seven years.
