A BSF man’s throat was allegedly slit by the Pakistani troops after he was fatally shot along the international border (IB) near Jammu, officials said on Wednesday.
The incident that took place in the Ramgarh sector on Tuesday has prompted the security forces to issue a “high alert” across the IB and Line of Control (LoC) even as the Border Security Force has lodged a strong complaint with its counterparts — the Pakistan Rangers.
Official sources said the body of Head Constable Narender Kumar also bore three bullet wounds and it was retrieved from a spot ahead of the Indo-Pak fence after over six hours.
The Pakistan Rangers, the sources said, was asked to take part in a joint patrolling to trace the missing man, but they only came up to a certain point and cited waterlogging problems in the area that prevented them from undertaking a coordinated action.
The BSF then waited for the sun to set and launched a “risky operation” to bring the soldier’s body back to the post by “late evening”.
While the BSF did not comment on the developments, sources said the force had alerted all its formations along the IB and informed the Army to be vigilant at the LoC.
The BSF’s Jammu frontier had yesterday issued a statement on the incident but did not mention anything about the hacking.
“A BSF party that was on domination patrolling ahead of the fence was fired upon. The BSF troops immediately took position and retaliated but the enemy bullets hit a soldier. The area on the Pakistani side has a protective bundh close to the IB,” the force had said in the statement.
It had added that the area on the Indian side was undulated, marshy and had a thick “sarkanda” growth that made tracing the location of the felled jawan difficult.
The incident came a day after Home Minister Rajnath Singh inaugurated the maiden “smart fence” project of the BSF in Jammu on Monday that aims to deploy smart technology and gadgets to secure the vulnerable patches on the Indo-Pak border.