Second secret tunnel found in 10 days near border in J&K's Kathua

Border Security Force (BSF) personnel on Saturday morning detected a secret cross-border tunnel near the international border in Kathua district of Jammu and Kashmir. This was the second tunnel to be discovered in Kathua in the past 10 days, reports further suggest.

The discovery, which came days before Republic Day celebrations, was made by the BSF when it was conducting anti-tunnelling operations along the border in Jammu division.

“We had received inputs from intelligence agencies for a while that there was the possible existence of a tunnel in the Pansar area. Our unit detected this under the anti-tunnelling campaign,” said NS Jamwal, IG- BSF, Jammu.

“Pakistan dug this tunnel from the zero-line. The tunnel is almost 140-150 metres long on the Indian side, as we have assessed till now. The tunnel is 2-3 feet wide in diameter,” he was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

The tunnel opened between BSF’s border post No. 14 and 15, opposite to Abhiyal-Dogra and Kingre-de-Kothe border outposts in Sakargarh district, reports quoted officials as saying. A Pakistani hexacopter carrying arms was shot down in this area in June 2020.

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The previous tunnel was found on January 13 at Bobbiyan in Hiranagar sector of Kathua district. The tunnel had a 20-30m opening behind the barbed wire fence.