Major dies in bid to defuse IED near LoC

An Army Major was killed and a soldier injured when an improvised explosive device ( IED) went off in an area close to the Line of Control ( LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir’s Rajouri district on Saturday.

The Army officer was killed while defusing the IED at Lam Jhanger in the Nowshera sector. The IED, apparently planted by “enemy forces within Indian territory”, was set off when the Major along with his men was patrolling the area and tried to defuse it.

This was the second IED attack along the LoC in the same sector since January.

On January 11, two Army personnel, including a Major, were killed.

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A Major- rank Army officer was killed and a soldier was injured when an Improvised Explosive Device ( IED) went off in an area close to the Line of Control ( LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir’s Rajouri district on Saturday.

Separately, a soldier was injured after Pakistani troops fired from small arms on Indian forward posts along the de facto border in the same district later during the day, the defence sources said.

Reports said that the Army officer whose identity is being ascertained was killed while defusing the IED at a place called Lam Jhanger in the Nowshera sector of Rajouri. The IED, apparently planted by “enemy forces within Indian territory” in this sector, was set off when the officer along with his men was patrolling the area and tried to defuse it.

The defence sources said that the Army officer and the soldier who received critical injuries in the blast were immediately rushed to a nearby medical facility where he ( the officer) succumbed, the reports said.

The incident comes two days after 49 CRPF personnel were killed and about a dozen others wounded in a suicide attack carried out by a lone member of Jaish- eMuhammad terror outfit at Lethapora along the Srinagar- Jammu highway.

Meanwhile, an Army jawan was injured after the Pakistani troops resorted to unprovoked firing from across the Line of Control in Rajouri on Saturday afternoon. The defence sources said that the firing started at 4pm, prompting strong retaliation by Indian troops.

The Army jawan was injured when he was hit by a bullet in the Kalal area of Nowshera sector, the sources said adding that the exchange of fire between the two sides was continuing when the reports last came in.