Blast rocks Samba village near Jammu-Kashmir border, probe on

Jammu (The Uttam Hindu) : A mysterious explosion occurred outside a house in a village in Jammu and Kashmir's Samba district on Monday. Officials said the exact nature of the blast was being ascertained.

Officials said the blast occurred at 2 a.m. Sunday outside the home of Sarpanch Jairam Sharma in Gawala Talab village, located in the Ghagwal sector of the international border in the district. Gawala Talab village is about 10 kilometers from the international border, officials said. The gate and boundary wall of the house were completely damaged in the blast, but no one was injured. Police and forensic experts teams reached the village and are trying to determine the exact cause of the explosion by collecting samples from the blast site.

An FIR has been registered in connection with the incident at the relevant police station. Further details are awaited. The 240-kilometer-long international border in the Union Territory lies in the Samba, Kathua, and Jammu districts. The international border is guarded by the Border Security Force (BSF). BSF personnel are deployed to prevent infiltration and exfiltration, drug trafficking, and drone activities from the Pakistani side of the border.

Terrorist organizations, with the assistance of the Pakistani Army, have used drones to drop consignments of weapons/ammunition, cash, and drugs across the Indian border. These payloads are typically picked up by over-ground workers (OGWs) of terrorist organizations and then handed over to terrorists to continue terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir. The BSF has deployed sophisticated anti-drone equipment along the international border to counter the threat of drone attacks from Pakistan. In addition to the international border, Jammu and Kashmir has a 740-kilometer-long Line of Control (LoC), which extends through the Baramulla, Kupwara, and Bandipora districts of the Valley and Poonch, Rajouri, and partly Jammu districts of the Jammu division. This LoC is guarded by the Army.