New Delhi: A powerful explosion took place at a hamlet in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kathua district near the India-Pakistan border leaving a huge crater on the ground, said the officials on Thursday, reported PTI. According to the report the explosion appeared to be an IED blast and the officials are suspecting that the IED might have been carried by a drone and dropped at the wrong site close to the border.
The police has not denied a terror angle and force has been deployed in the area in large numbers while an alert has also been issued, as per ABP News report.
Kathua Senior Superintendent of Police Shivdeep Singh Jamwal told the news agency that the police received the information about the blast at around 9:30 pm on Wednesday.
"We have also launched a search operation Thursday morning. The bomb squad has collected the samples from the site and sent them for tests," the SSP was quoted as saying.
Block Development Committee (BDC) chairman Ram Lal Kaliya, a resident of Saniyal village which is just 300 metres from the border post, said, "Around 9.30 pm on Wednesday we heard an explosion. I informed the post incharge who also confirmed the sound of the blast."
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As per Kaliya, the blast site was located after one-and-half hours where a crater was found in an agricultural field, reported the news agency.
Following the blast, a search operation was underway at Sanyal Border Police Post under Hiranagar Police Station near International Border this morning and as per ABP News sources, the police have found a grenade from the site.
"There was a blast yesterday. Investigation underway. A search operation was conducted in the areas near the police post. A live grenade is seized. The terrorist appears to have hurled the grenade due to the presence of security personnel," said Kathua SSP Shivdeep Singh Jamwal.