NEW DELHI: A civilian Pakistani helicopter briefly crossed over to India-held Jammu and Kashmir in the Arnia sector on Monday afternoon, an Indian newspaper reported.

Official sources told The Indian Express that the incident took place at around 1pm when the two-seater strayed into the India-held region. It flew over the ‘zero line’ at one place and suddenly disappeared only to resurface at some other place, a senior official said, attributing the violation to a pilot error because of the zigzag demarcation.

Normally, both sides stay four to five kilometres away to avoid chances of inadvertent crossing of the ‘zero line’. However, the Pakistan helicopter was flying very close to it, the official said, adding that the matter had been reported to the Indian defence ministry.

Our Staff Reporter in Karachi adds: Responding to Dawn queries, Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority officials said they were not aware of any such incident.

Published in Dawn, August 30th, 2016