Indian Army targets Pakistan military Headquarters in PoK

The Indian Army has targeted Pakistani military administrative headquarters across the Line of Control in retaliation to the recent shelling in Poonch and Jhallas, security officials said Monday.

The Army retaliated in the Khuiratta and Samani areas of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), they said.

The Pakistani army had shelled the brigade headquarters and other Indian military formations in Jammu and Kashmir's Poonch on October 23.

"In response to Pakistani army's firing of stray shells on Poonch and Jhallas on October 23, 2018, the Indian Army has sent a strong signal by firing at Pakistani army administrative headquarters... and the residents of border villages also reported that they could see smoke emanating," the officials said.

Following the shelling in Poonch, the Indian Army has in its "strong signal" to Pakistan, fired on its army administrative headquarters in PoK, they said.

Quoting information received from across the border, the officials claimed that several photographs "stood testimony" to the reports of border villagers that they had seen smoke emanating from the Pakistani headquarters after the Indian military's retaliatory action.

They said the Indian Army has exercised maximum restraint, despite continuous provocation by the Pakistani army.

The Army has avoided targeting civilian population living in the close proximity of the Line of Control (LoC) in PoK areas such as Hajira, Bandi Gopalpur, Nikial, Samani and Khuiratta, the officials said.

Following the 2016 surgical strikes, the pressure on the Pakistani army was kept across the LoC through "proactive and precise targeting" by the Indian Army, they said

The officials claimed that against the more than 138 fatal casualties suffered by the Pakistani army in the area in 2017, the numbers reduced to half till May 2018 after the neighbouring nation was forced to request for a ceasefire in the face of mounting deaths and injuries.

They also highlighted the recent killing of two Pakistan Border Action Team personnel in the Sunderbani sector on October 21 and the country's refusal to accept their bodies.

"Deprivation and penury of locals of PoK suits the Pakistan army that while ensconced in the safety of their posts, use these unwitting and brainwashed youths as cannon fodder for actions along the LoC, a cowardly and unprofessional modus operandi for any self respecting army," the officials said.

"These acts of the Pakistan army are accentuated by their propensity in refusing to acknowledge and accept the dead bodies of their soldiers as also of terrorists, each time the terrorists are neutralised in operations along the LoC or the hinterland," they said.

-PTI