Pakistan rejects Indian firing allegations
By Our Diplomatic Correspondent

ISLAMABAD—Pakistan army terming the Indian army allegations of firing by Pakistani forces at Sambha sector and an attempt to infiltrate the border as unfounded and devoid of facts has said no ceasefire violation has taken place from the Pakistani side.
Zee News quoting Indian Border security forces sources claimed that the border observation post of BSF in Sambha sector of Jammu region came under heavy firing late Thursday night from the Pakistani side with initial reports suggesting that militants wanted to infiltrate into Jammu region.
Talking to Online Director General ISPR Maj Gen Athar Abbas termed the Indian allegations as baseless and unfounded and said that Pakistani forces did not violate any ceasefire and no firing took place from our side of the border and the ceasefire agreement is very much intact.
He said infact Indian forces fired along the border and why and whom they were firing has not been ascertained as yet.
He said in order to ascertain the facts behind the Indian firing a flag meeting of the local commanders in underway. He added that allegation of infiltration by militants into Jammu is also unfounded as the border is fenced.
Zee news quoting sources in the BSF said that the incident took place at 2240 hours when the bop of 112 battalion of the BSF came under intense fire from the Pakistani side.
The suspected militants fired nearly 1000 rounds and hurled 16 grenades at the BSF post for quite sometime and some militants could have managed to sneak in as the fence was cut as well as damaged at some places, they had alleged.
India will lodge a protest with Pakistan after soldiers came under heavy cross-border fire while trying to stop a group of armed men from sneaking into its part of Kashmir, a security official said on Friday.
The firing took place in Samba sector, 400 km south of Srinagar, Indian Kashmir’s main city, late on Thursday night, minutes after border guards saw the intruders cutting part of a barbed wire fence. Indian soldiers fired back, the official said.
“We are not yet sure whether it was terrorist fire or Pakistani troops, but we are lodging a protest with Pakistan anyway,” K. Srinivasan, a senior Border Security Force (BSF) official told Reuters. The incident comes ahead of Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s visit to Pakistan later this month for a review of a four-year-old peace process between the two countries.
A truce between India and Pakistan came into effect along the military Line of Control in November 2003 as part of peace efforts between the two nuclear-armed rivals and violations have been rare.
Indian officials say separatist militants fighting New Delhi’s rule in the Himalayan region are still trying to cross the border from Pakistani Kashmir but violence has steadily dropped after the neighbours launched a peace process in 2004.
“The militants were prevented from entering India and we have strengthened security there,” Ashish Kumar Mitra, chief of the BSF, India’s main border security agency said about the latest incident.
Since the peace process began, the two sides have made little progress over Kashmir which they claim in full but rule in parts.