Police in Jammu and Kashmir’s Rajouri district on Thursday issued an advisory warning residents against calls from “suspicious unknown numbers”, from callers claiming to be senior Army, police or administrative officials to ask about the security situation.

The advisory said that over the last few days, there had been more than 10 reports of police, bureaucrats and ordinary civilians receiving such calls. Investigations had reportedly revealed that such calls were routed from outside the country, but “specialised software” had been used to display the caller ID with a +91 code. These calls were made by “miscreants, anti-national or anti-social elements” to fool people and gather vital information, the circular said.

The advisory asked the people to disconnect as soon as they found the caller was not known to them, to avoid sharing any details about the situation and to report such calls to the district police. “It is made clear that no civil, police, Army officers directly call people or officials at field level to inquire about security scenario,” the note said.

The Samba district police also issued a similar appeal on Thursday. The advisory requested residents not to “post any information about deployment, movement, action, weapons, photos, policy or any other information with regard to security forces functioning in the area”.

Residents were also asked not to believe rumours and to rely only on authorised government sources for information.

The two border districts have been on the edge since tensions mounted between India and Pakistan this week. On February 26, the Indian government conducted strikes in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province to destroy Jaish-e-Mohammad training camps. A day later, Pakistan announced that it “undertook strikes across the Line of Control”, aimed at a “non-military target”. Pakistani planes entered Indian airspace in the Nowshera sector of Rajouri district, and in Poonch, dropping payloads on their way out. Both Poonch and Rajouri districts have also seen ceasefire violations over the last couple of days.

Both government and private schools within five kilometres of Rajouri, Poonch, Jammu and Samba districts remained shut on Thursday. Emergency operations centres have been set up in Rajouri to receive grievances, and coordinate between the public and paramilitary and Army units, the State Times reported. No evacuation orders have been issued yet.