Tribune News Service

Jammu, April 15

After the Pakistani army shelled Poonch villages on the Line of Control (LoC) on the intervening night of April 9 and 10, Pakistan Rangers today fired four rounds of small arms on an Indian forward post along the 198-km-long international border in Samba district.“Last night around 2.15 am Pakistan fired four rounds of small arms on the Regal forward post in the Samba sector of the Jammu region,” said an Intelligence official.Senior Superintendent of Police, Samba, Joginder Singh informed that around 2.15 am, the Pakistan Rangers fired three or four rounds of small arms from their Chak Pura post.The BSF didn’t retaliate and there were no reports of any loss, he added.The Pakistan army had on April 9 and 10 had resorted to mortar shelling and firing in the Poonch sector after a lull of nearly seven months, following which the two sides held a battalion commander-level flag meeting at Chakanda Bagh to discuss the situation on April 12.However, the BSF that guards the international border stated that Rangers fired four rounds of small arms in the air to scare away a leopard, who had been roaming in the area for the past few days.“They didn’t target our post and it (firing) was not intentional,” said a senior BSF officer.With the onset of summer and suspension of Indo-Pak dialogue, intelligence agencies anticipate a spurt in truce violations and intrusion bids on the frontiers of Jammu and Kashmir.India and Pakistan had a inked truce deal on November 26, 2003.