Indian soldiers might have provoked alleged Pakistani assault

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As New Delhi raged over the attack by Pakistani troops claiming the lives of two Indian soldiers on Indian soil, and the mutilation of the bodies, the Indian Union Ministry of Home Affairs has received inputs that suggest that the Indian Army units in the Uri sector could have provoked the incident.
While there were sporadic incidents of fire across some parts of the LoC, a cross-border raid by the ghatak (commando) platoon of the ninth Maratha Light Infantry (MLI) in the early hours of Sunday could have been the provocation, reported ZEE News.
Top sources in the Union Home and Defence ministries said the Pakistani attack was in all likelihood a retaliation for the attack carried out by 9 MLI.
The commander of the 161 Brigade, stationed in the Churchunda sub-sector, Brigadier Gulab Singh Rawat, had decided to take a very aggressive posture.
The sources said he asked the commanding officer of 9 MLI to take “proactive action”, to launch a quick raid against a post that was harassing Indian positions.
The successful Indian raid led to the death of a Pakistani non-commissioned officer and escalated tensions across the LoC.
Normally, such an escalation leads to the issuing of a formal alert from the Udhampur-based North Command of the army to all its formations. This alert should have gone out to all the three corps that it commands — the Nagrota (Jammu) based 16 Corps, the Srinagar-based 15 Corps and the Leh-based 14 Corps.
Of these, 14 and 15 Corps are the most active as they man the LoC from Jammu right through to Kargil, from where 14 Corps takes over.
Incidentally, the neighbouring 12 Brigade in Uri had just seen a change of command after Brig RK Singh took over from Brig BS Raju. Any change of command of a major formation on the LoC is a sensitive time and troops are expected to be on high alert. The absence of the alert led to all the formations running things as business as usual.

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