ISLAMABAD, Jan 7: The Foreign Office summoned a senior Indian diplomat on Monday to protest against an attack on a Pakistan military post along the Line of Control in which a soldier was killed.

“The Deputy High Commissioner (DHC) of India was called to the Foreign Office today and handed over a protest note on the unprovoked Indian attack on a Pakistani post,” FO spokesman Moazzam Khan said.

Indian ground forces had on Sunday crossed the Line of Control and raided Pakistani outpost Sawan Patra in Haji Pir Sector (Bagh). A Pakistani soldier was killed and another two were critically injured.

The demarche given to Indian DHC Gopal Bagley urged Delhi to “take appropriate measures to avoid recurrence of such incidents in future”.

He was told by a senior official that Pakistan viewed the LoC ceasefire violation as a serious matter and wanted the ceasefire confidence building measure (CBM) agreed in 2003 to be fully respected.

It was important to note that the protest was made at a lower level and the media statement issued was milder using words like “called to” instead of “summoned”.

“We have been building confidence with India and don’t want to vitiate the atmosphere,” an official said.

It was not only one of those rare ceasefire violations since 2003 in which life was lost, but was significantly also one in which other side’s outpost was physically raided.

In view of the seriousness of the attack, the Foreign Office was asked to lodge the protest instead of the flag meeting — the military-to-military border coordination mechanism for discussing routine violations.

The LoC ceasefire CBM has by and large held for the past nine years. However, violations have been on the rise lately. In 2012 there were almost three dozen ceasefire violations.

The two sides had reviewed the conventional CBMs, including the LoC ceasefire, almost 10 days before the border incident.

Talks on the conventional CBMs in Delhi on Dec 27 had ended in a stalemate.

Pakistan's foreign ministry said it had handed the Indian deputy high commissioner a “protest note on the unprovoked Indian attack”.

“The Indian government was strongly urged to take appropriate measures to avoid recurrence of such incidents in future,” it said in a statement.

An Indian army spokesman had accused the Pakistani military of firing mortar bombs into a village in the Uri district in Indian Kashmir.

India suspended peace talks with Pakistan after militants killed 166 people in Mumbai in Nov 2008 -- attacks blamed by New Delhi and Washington on Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba.