2 women injured in Pak mortar shelling near Jammu

The incident comes amidst a flurry of ceasefire violations by Pakistani troops along the border in the past fortnight, with bullets and mortars fired by Rangers hitting villages and Indian outposts.

Two women were injured when mortar shells fired by Pakistani troops hit their house in the Kanachak area along the international border on Thursday evening, trigerring panic among the local populace.

The incident comes amidst a flurry of ceasefire violations by Pakistani troops along the border in the past fortnight, with bullets and mortars fired by Rangers hitting villages and Indian outposts. On Tuesday, one BSF head constable was killed and seven other security personnel injured in firing by Pakistani troops.

The station house officer of Kanachak Jitender Raina said that the two women were injured when mortar shells fired by Pakistani Rangers landed in a house in Lalayal village and exploded.

The area, around 20 kms from Jammu, falls is the Akhnoor sector.

The firing started at aroud 6.30 pm and continued for about 30 minutes.

“Pak rangers fired with small and automatic weapons resulting in exchange of gunfire,” said a BSF official.

On Wednesday night too, Pakistan Rangers had fired mortar shells and rockets, hitting civilian areas along the international border in Jammu and Samba districts forcing BSF troops to retaliate

One of the shells hit the house of one Mangal Singh in Nanga village, Ramgarh sector in Samba district while another hit a BSF outpost.

There was no loss of life or injury to anyone in the shelling.

The shelling stopped early on Thursday morning.

This year alone, there has been over 200 violations of the 2003 ceasefire agreement, leading to heightened tension along the border.

On Tuesday, home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde visited areas long the border to review the security situation arising out of ceasefire violations since October 14.