NEW DELHI: The Indian Army resorted to artillery firing on key posts of the Pakistani military across the Line of Control as part of punitive retaliation to unprovoked ceasefire violations , sources said on Thursday.

The artillery was fired on Pakistani posts in the Tangdhar and Poonch sectors on February 24 and 25, the sources said.

India has adopted a tit-for-tat posture in replying to ceasefire violations by Pakistan , officials said.

There has been a rise in ceasefire by Pakistan violations since the abrogation of special provisions of Article 370 in the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir in August last year.

This year alone there were a total of 646 incidents of ceasefire violations along the Indo-Pakistan International Border (IB) as well as the Line of Control (LoC) between January 1 and February 23, Minister of State for Defence Shripad Naik said on Wednesday.

"There have been 27 encounters with terrorists in the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) since August 5 last year to February 23 this year. Forty five terrorists were neutralised and seven security force personnel were also martyred," the minister stated.

On August 5 last year, the Central government had revoked Article 370 of the Constitution to take away Jammu and Kashmir's special status, and bifurcated the state into two union territories of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.

