On August 22, 2023, the Hindi newspaper, ‘Dainik Jagran’ published a false report that claimed that the Indian Army Special Forces commandos had crossed over to Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir and a major surgical strike was conducted by them neutralising eight terrorists and several launch pads. As per the report, several SF commandos crossed over to the Kolti and destroyed four terror launch pads, killing at seven to eight terrorists.
According to the ‘Jagran’ report, on August 19, 2023, this operation was carried out.
However, the Indian Army claimed the report to be false which claimed the SF Commandos of crossing over to the POJK (essentially crossing the LOC) Line of Control and neutralising terror launchpads. According to Indian Army sources, no surgical strikes have been conducted, but they did spoil an infiltration attempt by Pakistan.
According to them, a huge squad of terrorists were attempting to infiltrate India from the Balakot Sector of Jammu and Kashmir. Two terrorists were discovered and detected by alert troops on August 21, 2023 who were to make attempts to cross the LoC onto the Indian Side, taking advantage of weather-dense fog, thick foliage and then undulating ground in the Hamirpur area of the Balakot Sector.
And when the terrorists tried to infiltrate, the Indian army hit them with heavy fire, which forced them to retreat using the weather conditions. They said, “However, the effective fire resulted in one terrorist falling down near the LoC. Additional troops were deployed, and search operations commenced in the afternoon and after the improvement of the weather conditions and visibility.”
Lt Col Suneel Bartwal, the Jammu-based defence spokesperson stated that an AK-47 rifle along with two magazines, 30 rounds, two hand grenades, and Pak-origin medicines were recovered from the place where the terrorists were killed.
Meanwhile, the Press Information Bureau (PIB) and the Ministry also declared the report published by ‘Dainik Jagran’ to be false and baseless.
