Date:06/07/2009 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2009/07/06/stories/2009070660191000.htm

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India protests firing along Punjab border

Praveen Swami

— Photo: AFP

Army officials inspect the site in Dhandae village in Punjab near the India-Pakistan border where a rocket-propelled grenade, reportedly launched from Pakistani soil, fell late on Saturday.

NEW DELHI: India has called on Pakistan to strengthen security along the international border in Punjab, following a mysterious rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) attack on Saturday night.

Sources in the Border Security Force said an RPG exploded in a field near the Pul Kanjari Border Observation Post, shortly before 10:30 p.m. on Saturday. Its fragments were later recovered.

Minutes earlier, troops stationed along India-Pakistan border in the Attari area, heard a loud explosion from the area around Pakistan’s KS Wallah Border Post.

Both incidents followed an early-afternoon shooting, in which a Pakistani attempting to cross the fencing on the India-Pakistan border was killed. It is unclear, however, if the shooting and the subsequent explosions were linked.

Terrorist attack?

“Based on the trajectory of the rockets, our best guess is that both were aimed at the KS Wallah Post, but one missed its target and landed on our side of the border,” a senior BSF official said.

In March, terrorists believed to be linked to the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) had attacked a police training academy at Manawan, near Attari.

Six weeks ago, government sources said, the BSF informally shared communications intelligence that TTP terrorists were planning to target the Rangers’ forward positions.