Senior J&K Official Among 5 Killed in Heavy Pakistani Shelling Along Border Areas

GG News Bureau
Jammu, 10th May: Early Saturday, Pakistani troops fired heavy shells into districts along the Line of Control (LoC) and International Border (IB) in Jammu and Kashmir, killing five people, including a senior government official, and injuring several others.

Officials confirmed that Raj Kumar Thappa, a Jammu and Kashmir Administrative Services officer serving as the Additional District Development Commissioner of Rajouri, was killed in the shelling in Rajouri district. He sustained serious splinter injuries when a shell hit his residence and succumbed to his injuries after being evacuated to a hospital.

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah expressed shock and sadness over Thappa’s death, posting on X, “Devastating news from Rajouri. We have lost a dedicated officer of the J&K Administration Services. Just yesterday he was accompanying the Deputy CM around the district & attended the online meeting I chaired. Today the residence of the officer was hit by Pak shelling as they targeted Rajouri town killing our Additional District Development Commissioner Sh Raj Kumar Thappa. I’ve no words to express my shock & sadness at this terrible.”

With these fatalities, the death toll in Pakistani shelling across Jammu and Kashmir has tragically risen to 17.

Among the other victims confirmed killed in the early Saturday shelling were a two-year-old child, Aisha Noor, and a 35-year-old man, Mohd Shohib, near an industrial area in Rajouri town. In Poonch district’s Mendhar sector, a 55-year-old woman, Rashida Bi, died when a mortar shell struck her house in Kanghra-Galhutta village. Along the International Border in the R S Pura sector of Jammu district, Ashok Kumar alias Shoki, a resident of Bidipur Jatta village, was killed in the cross-border firing.

Officials reported that several persons were injured in intense shelling in Poonch and were moved to a hospital for treatment. Additionally, several individuals in Jammu city were also injured when artillery shells and suspected drones hit residential areas, including Rehari and Rupnagar.

The overnight shelling by Pakistani troops, which involved firing mortar and artillery shells on border areas from Uri in north Kashmir to Rajouri and Poonch in the Jammu region, also caused damage to many residential houses and other structures in Rajouri, Poonch, and Uri. This intensified cross-border targeting by Pakistani forces follows India’s launch of ‘Operation Sindoor’, aimed at destroying terror infrastructure in Pakistan.