Pakistani BAT members wore headband cameras to record 22 June assault on Indian soldiers

Jammu: The Pakistani Border Action Team (BAT), which attacked an Indian Army patrol after crossing the LoC, was made up of special forces’ men and terrorists who were armed with ‘special daggers’ and headband cameras for recording the strike in Poonch district. The attack on 22 June left two Indian soldiers dead while one BAT member was killed in retaliatory action by Indian troops. Army troops during search and sanitation operations, recovered the body of a member of the BAT team along the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir’s Poonch district on 22 June. “The body of the intruder killed in the BAT attempt has been retrieved and handed over to the local police,” a senior army officer told PTI on Friday. “Arms, ammunition and other war-like stores including a special dagger and a headband with a camera, knife, one AK rifle, 3 magazines, 2 grenades besides dresses and bags was recovered which reflects the barbaric mindset of the Pakistani Army,” he said. [caption id=“attachment_3741087” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. WP[/caption] Giving details, the officer said that a special class of dagger and a knife was meant to engineer quick mutilation and beheading of jawans killed in the firing exchanges and it has been foiled by the quick action by Indian soldiers. The BAT member was wearing a headband with a camera on it to record the action and possible mutilation of jawans, which was prevented by other troops who shot dead one of them and injured another, he said. The officer said it is matter of investigation whether the camera was live connected with Pakistani Army establishments across the border. “The data and details of the camera will be analysed,” he said. “We are confident that another BAT member has also been killed but his body was taken back by the other members of the BAT,” he said. “The resolute action of our soldiers didn’t let the nefarious plan (of mutilating bodies and recording it on camera) succeed,” the officer said. In the third such attack this year, a team of Pakistani special forces sneaked 600 metres across the Line of Control (LoC) into the Poonch sector. The Border Action Team (BAT), which generally comprises special forces personnel of the Pakistani Army and some terrorists, carried out the attack at around 2 pm under heavy cover fire by Pakistani troops from their posts, he said. “A Border Action Team of five to seven heavily-armed men, under the cover of Pakistani firing, entered 600 meters inside the LoC in Gulpur forward area in Poonch sector,” the official said. The Pakistani attackers came up to 200 meters near the Indian posts. During the attack, the Pakistani troops resorted to firing in Gulpur-Karmara-Chakan-Da-Bagh area along the LoC. The armed intruders targeted an area domination patrol of the Indian Army, triggering a gunfight, the official said. The Indian troops killed one of the attackers and injured another whose extrication was facilitated by the cover fire by the Pakistani troops from their posts. In the firefight, two Indian soldiers were killed. They were 34-year-old Naik Jadhav Sandip of Aurangabad, Maharashtra, and 24-year-old Sepoy Mane Savan Balku of Kolhapur, Maharashtra. The Pakistani firing continued till 3.30 pm on Friday even as the Indian posts retaliated strongly. In a similar BAT attack on 1 May, two Indian soldiers were beheaded in Krishna Ghati sector in Poonch district. That attack too was carried out under the cover of shelling by the Pakistani troops. Prior to that, a BAT attack was carried out in February but there were no casualties. Earlier, there have been several BAT attacks in which Indian jawans have been beheaded or their bodies mutilated. On 28 October last year, militants attacked a post and killed an Indian Army soldier and mutilated his body close to the Line of Control (LoC) in the Machil sector. In January 2013, Lance Naik Hemraj was killed and his body mutilated by a BAT. Lance Naik Sudhakar Singh was also beheaded.