MUZAFFARABAD: Pakistan Army troops shot down an Indian spy drone after it intruded in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) from across the restive Line of Control (LoC) on Friday, military’s media affairs wing said.

“Pakistan Army troops shot down an Indian spying quadcopter in Khanjar sector along LOC. The quadcopter had intruded 500 meters on Pakistan’s side of the LOC,” said the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) director general Maj Gen Babar Iftikhar in a tweet.

Khanjar sector is located in Samahni tehsil of AJK’s Bhimber district. It is the same area where Pakistan had downed an Indian jet and captured alive its pilot, Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman, in February last year. He was returned by Pakistan after 60 hours as a goodwill gesture.

It’s the third such device that has been shot down in recent weeks

Amjad Aziz, a journalist based in Samahni, told Dawn by telephone that Pakistani troops hit the Indian drone from their bunker at about 8:55am on Friday.

The drone fell in Nihala Chahi village, which lies in the closest proximity of the heavily-militarised LoC, where a young villager picked it up and handed over to Pakistan army personnel after a short while, he said.

As tensions along the LoC are escalating, Indian troops have also been frequently sending quadcopters for aerial photography of Pakistan army posts, as part of their intelligence-gathering operations and target selection before carrying out cross-LoC shelling.

In his tweet, the ISPR chief said that it was 8th Indian quadcopter to have been shot down by Pakistan Army troops in the ongoing year.

In the latest incidents late last month, one each Indian spy drone was downed by Pakistani soldiers in less than 48 hours in Rakhchikri sector of Haveli district and Nekrun sector of Neelum valley.

Published in Dawn, June 6th, 2020