MUZAFFARABAD: Three days after the top military officials of Pakistan and India agreed to fully implement the November 2003 ceasefire agreement, Indian snipers shot at and injured a villager in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) on Friday, police said.

Mudassar Iqbal, 25, was near his home in Polas village of Abbaspur sector when he was targeted by an Indian sniper from across the Line of Control (LoC), police official Muhammad Shakil told Dawn.

A bullet hit him in the left foot and he was taken to a nearby hospital, he added.

Polas village lies in close proximity of the LoC in Poonch district and has seen many casualties in the past at the hands of Indian troops, as for a considerable time the heavily militarised dividing line has been witnessing exchange of heavy shelling between rival troops in a serious breach of the 2003 truce agreement.

However, apart from the heavy shelling, of late Indian troops had also started sniping with heavy calibre weapons and targeting innocent men, women and children while they did not fear any such threat from across the divide.

A number of civilians, busy in their routine life, were either killed or injured after they were sniped at by Indian troops in different areas along the LoC.

The last such casualty was reported from Hajira sector of Poonch district on May 15, when a 55-year-old was shot dead when he was trimming a tree in his courtyard.

Published in Dawn, June 2nd, 2018