NEW DELHI: The Army killed two "armed intruders" to foil yet another Pakistani BAT (border action team) operation in the Poonch district along the volatile Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir on Thursday afternoon. Two soldiers of the Maratha Light Infantry, Naik Jadhav Sandip Sarjerao and Sepoy Mane Savan Balku, laid down their lives in the operation.

An “area domination patrol” of the Army was underway in the Krishna Ghati sector along the LoC when it was attacked by the armed intruders around 600 meters inside Indian territory at around 2 pm.

“While the fierce firefight was in progress, in which two of our soldiers were martyred, Pakistan Army posts in the sector also opened heavy fire on our posts,” said an officer.

"While the body of one armed intruder can still be seen lying in the open, the BAT managed to drag back the body of the other under covering fire. The cross-border exchange of heavy firing is still underway in the sector,” he added.

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The BAT operation, which took place just about 200 metres from the Indian post there on Thursday, is the third such incident in the Poonch region this year. BAT cross-border raids are usually undertaken by a group of around six to seven regular Pakistan Army soldiers with a few terrorists after systematic reconnaissance of vulnerable spots and studying the deployment and patrolling patterns of Indian troops along the LoC.

On May 1, two Indian soldiers were beheaded and another injured by a Pakistani BAT after it had sneaked into Indian territory under the cover of heavy shelling in the same Krishna Ghati sector in Poonch district. India had vowed to exact revenge for the “barbaric” mutilation of the bodies during this well-planned BAT raid and ambush over 200 meters deep inside Indian territory.

Since then, the Indian Army has been exerting military pressure on the Pakistan Army with “pre-emptive and punitive fire assaults” to "pro-actively dominate" the 778-km long LoC and destroy “locations” across the border that aid infiltration attempts as part of the overall counter-terrorism strategy, as was reported by TOI earlier.

The Indian director-general of military operations, Lt-General A K Bhatt, has also warned his Pakistani counterpart about the growing number of BAT camps located around 10-12 km from the LoC in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir .

These BAT camps, unlike the largely make-shift terror-training camps and launch pads, consist of around 40-50 Pakistan Army regulars and commandos being specially trained for cross-border raids and ambushes.

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In Video: Pakistan's BAT attack in J&K: 2 Indian soldiers martyred, two attackers killed