In
The Line of Fire Terror-stricken civilians and tense soldiers met
Associate Editor Harinder Baweja in shell-shocked Drass and
Kargil
Ready!" The guns take position. "Fire," screams a
soldier into a hailer and thunderclaps pierce the silence that had descended upon the
picturesque vale. We are approaching Drass, 60 km west of Kargil. The army now calls it
the "artillery range of the enemy". The area that had remained peaceful since
1947 is now being pounded by thousands of shells every day. The infiltrators who reached
the heights above Drass have gained access to the highway and every now and then gunfire
echoes through one of the coldest battlefields in the world.
But it is far from cold at the moment. "Stop! Don't go
ahead, you're in the shelling range," rasps a soldier. Within seconds, the light
field guns are fired as we cover our ears, the ground shaking beneath our feet.
We are travelling against the tide of refugees fleeing from
Drass. The few who had chosen to stay back ran for their lives when the air strikes began.
"Even the hospital has been shelled," says Abbas Ali, a resident of Drass who is
leaving with his wife and two children. He clutches a basket, the only possession he is
taking with him. What is it? Clothes? Jewellery? As it turns out, there are two hens in
the basket -- food for the family when it comes to the crunch.
There is little in terms of facilities for the refugees.
While the residents of Drass have gone towards Sonmarg in the Kashmir valley, people from
Kargil have fanned into the villages. The lucky ones have taken shelter with relatives.
Others have just pitched tents on the roadside. "We are scared and take shelter
behind rocks when the shelling starts," says Saira Banu holding her daughter tightly.
The army's main concern is the control of the highway where
gun positions have sprung up in the past three weeks. The soldiers in bunkers are tense
and our identity cards are checked repeatedly, reminding us of the indemnity bond we had
to sign in Srinagar before leaving for the war zone.
"No movement till five in the evening," a major
tells us in Sonmarg. That means we wouldn't be able to reach Kargil because headlights
invite attacks by the infiltrators who are alarmingly close to the highway. Two hours
later, however, we are given clearance and told that we are proceeding "at your own
risk".
The war is intensifying. Choppers land in an open field where
ambulances are waiting with injured soldiers. "No pictures here," shouts an
officer as we make our way towards Kargil to discover that even the Brigade Headquarters
was shelled. It's not safe, not behind a three-ton army truck, as a shell lands just
behind our car. "They are not even sparing civilian vehicles," says an army
officer as he offers us a much-needed cup of tea. Only the army can give you tea and food.
The residents of Drass or Kargil have fled their homes. They don't know when this war will
be over. There are no signs of that yet.
The army knows that only too well. An officer in Kargil tells
us about a soldier who used his handkerchief to plug the bullet wound in his thigh. When
help came 36 hours later and he was shifted to hospital, only the tip of the hanky was
hanging out. Others were not so lucky. "Most of them died because they started eating
snow to avoid dehydration due to the wounds. But water is what you should avoid,"
says a doctor at the Army Hospital in Kargil. As we move on, a soldier fires that
oft-repeated warning: "Stop, don't proceed. You are in the shelling zone."
DIPLOMACY
MINEFIELD
AHEAD
The call from
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif came at 10.30 p.m. on May 24 just before Atal Bihari Vajpayee
went to bed. When the Indian prime minister spoke his tone was cold and tough, vastly
different from the bonhomie with which he addressed Sharif when they met for their famed
Lahore diplomacy just three months ago. In the 10-minute conversation that followed,
Vajpayee told Sharif what was happening in Kargil was "a violation" of the
Lahore Declaration and that India would take "all possible" steps to evict the
intruders. The call was symptomatic of just how rapidly India and Pakistan's relations had
deteriorated after blooming briefly in the spring of 1999. S.K. Singh, former foreign
secretary, says emphatically, "The Lahore Declaration is now in tatters."
Pakistan's game plan is clear. Having being upstaged by India
in the bus diplomacy and also frustrated that their efforts to disrupt peace in the
Kashmir Valley weren't working, they took a daring -- some say desperate -- gamble to
bring Kashmir to the forefront of international consciousness again. Pakistan's best case
scenario is the UN Security Council taking cognisance of the battle for Kargil and sending
down an emissary to broker peace . Or the UN calling for a ceasefire, while its men were
still ensconced in the strategic heights so that they could constantly threaten the
Srinagar-Leh highway. Last week, Pakistan approached UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan
seeking his intervention. Amitabh Mattoo, chairperson of Jawaharlal Nehru University's
centre for international politics, believes that "Pakistan has very little to lose
and plenty to gain by the outcome".
So far, Pakistan doesn't appear to have made much headway.
The US seemed to endorse India's stand that it had not struck beyond the loc. Russia too
backed India. France, China and Britain, while expressing concern, still wanted it to be
settled bilaterally. So even if Pakistan succeeds in moving the UN Security Council it may
not get the support it had hoped for. Especially since the world is preoccupied with the
war in Kosovo.
India's position is clear: It will agree to a ceasefire only
after it has cleared all the intruders occupying the Kargil heights or at least battered
them sufficiently and isolated them so that it can knock them down much more easily in the
coming months. Yet, if for some reason the battle in Kargil begins to spin out of control,
the situation could alter dramatically and India may find itself on the mat.
-Raj
Chengappa
ACROSS THE BORDER
Blame
Game
Pakistan the boot
was on the other foot. India was seen as the aggressor. The day the two Indian jets were
downed a screaming headline in Jang, the largest circulated mainstream Urdu newspaper,
proclaimed, "India attacks Pakistan positions. Army shoots down two jets." Dawn,
the widely-read English daily, stated, "Two intruding jet fighters shot. Pakistan
lodges protest."
While India may justify its recent military build-up along
the LoC, the Pakistani leadership views the latest developments as a preparation for an
extended military conflict by India. They reject the Indian claim that the build-up of
over 30,000 additional troops was only meant to counter 400 alleged infiltrators.
Pakistan's Information Minister Mushahid Hussain blamed the
Indian leadership for provoking an unnecessary military confrontation with the country in
order to gain political ground at home. Hussain also criticised India's conflicting stand
over the so-called intruders in Kargil, saying it first referred to them as
"militants", then "infiltrators", then "Afghan Talibans" and
now "Pakistan army regulars". He pointed out that India started out with a
figure of 150 infiltrators and has now ended with over 400 and growing.
After the two Indian jets were downed there was widespread
fear in Karachi that India would escalate the conflict. But as Zafar Ahmed, a local
shopkeeper, said defiantly: "India needs to be constantly reminded it is now messing
around with a nuclear Pakistan."
As in India, the Karachi Stock Exchange dropped 58 points in
a day when news came in of the battle at the loc. A war is the last thing most Pakistanis
want, especially with the economy in a dismal state. Exports are down by 12 per cent and
the current account deficit is estimated at $1.5 billion. Nor does Sharif, who has emerged
as the most powerful civil ruler the country has ever had, need to demonstrate machismo to
win support in Pakistan.
Sharif's stand has been that Pakistan would continue to
exercise restraint but will "not tolerate gross airspace violations or territorial
intrusions". With the Opposition taking a battering and Benazir Bhutto on the run
there is really no one to challenge Sharif. So, unlike Vajpayee, he is free to deal with
India as he sees fit.
Ready!" The guns take position. "Fire," screams a
soldier into a hailer and thunderclaps pierce the silence that had descended upon the
picturesque vale. We are approaching Drass, 60 km west of Kargil. The army now calls it
the "artillery range of the enemy". The area that had remained peaceful since
1947 is now being pounded by thousands of shells every day. The infiltrators who reached
the heights above Drass have gained access to the highway and every now and then gunfire
echoes through one of the coldest battlefields in the world. 
The call from
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif came at 10.30 p.m. on May 24 just before Atal Bihari Vajpayee
went to bed. When the Indian prime minister spoke his tone was cold and tough, vastly
different from the bonhomie with which he addressed Sharif when they met for their famed
Lahore diplomacy just three months ago. In the 10-minute conversation that followed,
Vajpayee told Sharif what was happening in Kargil was "a violation" of the
Lahore Declaration and that India would take "all possible" steps to evict the
intruders. The call was symptomatic of just how rapidly India and Pakistan's relations had
deteriorated after blooming briefly in the spring of 1999. S.K. Singh, former foreign
secretary, says emphatically, "The Lahore Declaration is now in tatters." 
Pakistan the boot
was on the other foot. India was seen as the aggressor. The day the two Indian jets were
downed a screaming headline in Jang, the largest circulated mainstream Urdu newspaper,
proclaimed, "India attacks Pakistan positions. Army shoots down two jets." Dawn,
the widely-read English daily, stated, "Two intruding jet fighters shot. Pakistan
lodges protest." 
