MUZAFFARABAD: The Pakistan army on Thursday shot down an Indian spy drone close to the restive Line of Control (LoC) in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK).

According to a brief statement issued by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the media affairs wing of the Pakistan army, an Indian quadcopter was shot down by the Pakistan army after it violated Pakistan’s airspace in Sankh sector along the LoC.

Civilian sources told Dawn that the area where the spy drone was shot down fell into the administrative jurisdiction of AJK’s Haveli district.

“In this provocative act, Indian quadcopter intruded 600 metres inside Pakistan’s territory for conducting surveillance. This blatant act was aggressively responded to by Pakistan Army troops [by] shooting down the Indian quadcopter,” the ISPR said.

ISPR says incident reflects India’s consistent disregard to truce understanding

“Such unwarranted acts by Indian Army are clear violation of established norms [and] existing Air Agreement between the two countries and reflect Indian Army’s consistent disregard to [the] Ceasefire Understanding of 2003,” it added.

According to military sources, Indian military uses quadcopters for aerial photography of Pakistani posts along the LoC as part of its intelligence-gathering operations and target selection before carrying out cross-LoC shelling.

In March last year, the Pakistan army had shot down a spying quadcopter in Rakhchikri sector of the same district after it intruded some 150 metres into Pakistani airspace.

Published in Dawn, April 10th, 2020