'Pakistan cannot sustain a war with India for more than four days. They are in such dire straits. At best they can sustain war for one week.'
The Jammu and Kashmir government on Thursday ordered a magisterial probe into the killing of three persons by the army on the Line of Control after it said an infiltration bid had been foiled in north Kashmir's Machil sector of Kupwara district.
The area has been cordoned off and counter-operations are in progress.
Expressing serious reservations regarding the court martial of army personnel involved in Machil fake encounter, the moderate, All Parties Hurriyat Conference chairman Mirwaiz Moulvi Umar Farooq on Friday said, "Machil and all such cases should be heard in civil courts under wide public gaze instead in the closed rooms."
Police officials said the two operations were launched on August 28 based on specific inputs by Kupwara Police a day earlier.
This is the first case in the Valley in which Indian Army personnel have been awarded life terms on these charges.
The attack, which claimed the lives of seven individuals, including a local doctor and two labourers from Bihar, has raised concerns about the unreported trend of local youths joining terrorist groups in Kashmir during this period.
They stated that when a soldier fights for the nation, he does so not as a Hindu, Muslim, or any other religion, but as a patriot.
Handing the verdict, the General Court Martial also suspended the service benefits of Col DK Pathania of the 4 Rajput regiment (the unit which was involved in the encounter), Captain Upendra Singh, Subedar Satbir Singh, Havildar Bir Singh, Sepoy Chadraban, Sepoy Nagendra Singh and Sepoy Narinder Singh.
The army on Wednesday ordered court martial proceedings against six of its men, including two officers, for their alleged involvement in the 2010 Machil fake encounter case that had triggered a two month-long agitation in the Kashmir Valley.
Soldiers patrol along the Line of Control in the Machil sector in Kupwara.
The GoC said the security forces have also recovered a huge quantity of narcotics which establishes a deep nexus between defence establishments in Pakistan and terrorist groups.
Two terrorists were killed as security forces foiled an infiltration bid along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir's Kupwara district on Saturday, police said.
The infiltration bid was foiled by Army and Jammu and Kashmir Police early on Sunday morning.
Acting on specific input about the presence of terrorists in the Wanigam Payeen Kreeri area of Baramulla district in north Kashmir, security forces launched a cordon and search operation there early Thursday morning, a police official said.
Two terrorists were killed in an encounter as security forces foiled an infiltration bid in Jammu and Kashmir's Kupwara district on Wednesday, officials said.
Additional security personnel have been deployed on the ground and drones are being used for aerial surveillance, they said.
As part of the deradicalisation strategy, the army, with the cooperation of the Union Territory administration, has undertaken a series of initiatives.
The Border Security Force flew a special helicopter sortie on Thursday to airlift a jawan deployed at a remote post along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir so that he could get home, about 2,500 km away in Odisha, in time for his wedding.
As India progresses towards formulating its own model of theaterisation, the public must get involved in the debate because in the end, it affects the well-being of the entire nation, asserts Biswajit Dasgupta.
The terrorists made an abortive bid during the night to infiltrate into the Indian side of the LoC in Machil sector in north Kashmir's Kupwara district, they added. The infiltrators were challenged and three of them were killed, the officials said.
Official sources said the chargesheet has named Colonel D K Pathania, Major Upinder and four others of the unit besides a Territorial Army jawan and two others for allegedly conspiring and kidnapping three youths from Sopore on the pretext of giving them jobs and later killing them in the higher reaches of Kupwara claiming they were terrorists.
Delhi's primary weather station, the Safdarjung Observatory, registered a maximum temperature of 40.4 degrees Celsius, four notches higher than normal.
The national capital, parts of which reeled under heatwave conditions for the past few days, had some relief on Wednesday with strong winds and partly cloudy skies witnessed during the day.
One junior commissioned officer was killed and an army trooper injured when security forces foiled an infiltration bid in the Machil sector of the Line of Control on Saturday morning.
An unidentified militant was on Saturday killed as security forces scuttled a major infiltration bid in Machil sector of north Kashmir's Kupwara district, Army said.
The Border Security Force is deployed along the LoC under the operational command of the Army as part of guarding the front against Pakistan.
The Indian Army killed three infiltrating militants in two separate encounters on the Line of Control in north Kashmir Kupwara border district on Thursday. A defence spokesman in Srinagar said two heavily armed groups of infiltrating militants were challenged by the army in the Machil and Keran sectors of the LOC in Kupwara district Thursday morning.
After initial 'zero infiltration' in the wake of renewed ceasefire agreement between India and Pakistan in February, fresh attempts are on to push terrorists from across the border where 250 to 300 terrorists are trained and waiting on the launch pads, Jammu and Kashmir Director General of Police Dilbag Singh said on Tuesday.
People living in areas like Nowgam, Chowkibal, Budnambal, Karnah, Keran, Jumagand, Kenthawali, Machil and Lashdat along the Line of Control in north Kashmir have been advised not to venture into steep avalanche-prone slopes
The army has gunned down two more intruding militants on the Line of Control in north Kashmir's Kupwara district.
The 434-km Srinagar-Leh National highway was closed for traffic as high altitude areas of Kashmir Valley, including the famous ski resort of Gulmarg, experienced the first heavy snowfall of the season, officials said.
This is the third infiltration attempt that has been foiled by the army in north Kashmir over the past fortnight.
Civilian witnesses and members of other security forces, who are connected to the Pathribal and Machil alleged fake encounters, will be allowed to depose before the Army inquiry into these cases.
Four Indian Army personnel, a Border Security Force sub-inspector and six civilians were killed while four security forces personnel and eight civilians were injured in the firing by Pakistan during the multiple ceasefire violations between Gurez and Uri sectors in Jammu and Kashmir, officials said.
The chief judicial magistrate (CJM) Sopore Tuesday rejected the army's application for permission to record the statements of the three accused in the Machil fake encounter case.
Eight militants and a cop were killed in two fierce encounters in Kashmir Valley where four protestors were wounded in security force firing during post Friday prayer clashes.
"The infiltrators were challenged to surrender after they were surrounded upon which they opened fire at the troops leading to an encounter, which has now ended. All the three infiltrators were killed," Lt Col J S Brar told rediff.com.
The Jammu and Kashmir Police has sought the custody of an army colonel, a major and four others for custodial interrogation in the alleged fake encounter of three youth in Machil sector in frontier district of Kupwara in April this year.
The barbaric incident at the Line of Control in Kashmir in which the body of an Indian Army jawan was mutilated after being killed by terrorists, aided by the cover fire by Pakistani Army, sparked an outrage on Saturday even as a pall of gloom descended on his native village in Haryana.
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