A Kashmir landmine blast near the Line of Control (LoC) in Poonch district killed four young men on Monday, October 12, in an incident that has produced sharply conflicting accounts from the two sides of the disputed frontier. The blast, near the villages of Mahandlah and Madarpur in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, killed all four at the scene, according to local officials and reports from both countries.
FAKTA
- Four killed: Faizan Sagheer, Ishtiaq, Asim Rafiq and Waqas Sharif — all residents of the Mahandlah-Madarpur area of Poonch district.
- Where: near a spring between Mahandlah and Madarpur villages, close to the LoC; Indian sources place the blast in the Krishna Ghati sector.
- When: Monday, 12 October 2026.
- Pakistan-administered Kashmir account: the men were repairing a water pipeline at a nearby spring when a landmine — allegedly drifted from the Indian side — exploded.
- Indian account: the four were attempting to cross into Indian territory, and one of them was a senior militant commander.
- Context: the LoC divides the two administered parts of Kashmir and remains one of the world’s most heavily militarized borders.
Two conflicting accounts
According to the Directorate General of Public Relations in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, the four young men had gone to a nearby spring to repair a water pipeline supplying their homes when the device detonated. Officials there alleged the landmine had drifted from the Indian side of the LoC and warned that unexploded ordnance remains a threat to civilians and livestock along the disputed frontier.
Indian security sources offered a sharply different version. They described the four as a group attempting to infiltrate into Indian-administered Kashmir through the Krishna Ghati sector, and claimed one of those killed was a senior commander of a militant organization. Indian media quoted officials saying the group had walked into a forward minefield that forms part of the army’s anti-infiltration grid along the LoC.
Relatives of the dead and local journalists rejected the infiltration claim. Senior journalist Sardar Zahid Tabassum, editor-in-chief of the daily Kashmir Express, told the Kashmir Times that the four were civilians from one extended family who had gone to repair the pipeline. He identified one of them as an activist of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front. Independent verification of either account was not possible.
Kashmir landmine blast: a mined frontier
The explosion comes amid renewed tension between the two neighbours. Earlier this month, two Pakistani civilians died near the international border, an incident over which Pakistan summoned India’s charge d’affaires; India’s External Affairs Ministry later summoned Pakistan’s envoy and rejected the claims as baseless.
Both countries claim Kashmir in full while administering separate parts of it. The LoC has seen sporadic violence for decades, and the border belt remains laced with minefields and unexploded ordnance — a persistent danger for villages where residents must cross open ground to reach water sources, fields and grazing land. Read more from the region on Watan News.
