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THE NATION: KASHMIR
Back To The Trenches
Guns are already booming along the Line of Control and
the army is steeling itself for an escalation in violence in the Valley
following the Agra Summit
By Shishir Gupta and Irshad Wani
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ON FIRE: Police officers carry a pilgrim's
body; (below) the Jammu bandh
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Kargil has always
been an accurate barometer to gauge the levels of tension between India
and Pakistan. During the 1999 border war it was the eye of the storm.
Last year the army celebrated Vijay Divas, or victory day, on July 26
with much fanfare and the faces of the villagers reflected the peace that
had descended in the region. Last week, the change was evident. The residents
were busy refurbishing underground bunkers. Hotel owners were mourning
the cancellation of bookings by foreign tourists.
Barring a brief wreath-laying ceremony by the
army on Vijay Divas at the base of the famed Tololing peak, the armed
forces in the region too kept the celebrations subdued. The caution was
understandable. Just a week earlier, after an almost two-year hiatus,
the Pakistani artillery had rained shells in the Kargil sector. Coming
soon after the failure of India and Pakistan to move forward at the summit
between the leaders of the two countries in Agra, it was a clear signal
of Islamabad's intentions. "Courtesy the summit, we are possibly
back to square one," says Mohammad Jaffer, a resident of Kargil whose
house received a direct artillery hit in 1997.
A violent backlash in the Valley was always
on the cards after the talks collapsed. But Pakistan struck with a ferocity
and speed that surprised India. Barely had the Kargil shelling subsided
when militants reportedly backed by Pakistan exploded two bombs and fired
upon pilgrims who were on the annual Amarnath yatra. The attack in Sheshnag
left 13 dead but reports now indicate that some of them may have been
accidentally killed by security forces when they returned the fire. The
militants remained undeterred. The next day in the Jammu sector, they
killed 19 people, including 15 Hindu residents, women and children in
Doda. In the following days in sporadic explosions in Srinagar, Kupwara
and Bandipora, explosions left two dead and several injured. Even in the
Siachen sector, Pakistan stepped up artillery firing in the world's highest
battlefield.
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Pakistan's
objective is to keep the LoC simmering and ensure events in the
Valley remain in international focus.
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Security forces are expecting more. "Intelligence
inputs do suggest that groups dominated by foreigners will increase violence
further at the behest of Islamabad which is keen on internationalising
the Kashmir issue," says R.P. Singh, chief of the Border Security
Force's (BSF) G Branch in Srinagar, that monitors militant activity. Intelligence
inputs indicate that the Valley would witness stepped up militancy with
the Pakistani propaganda blaming the Indian "hardliners" for
the failure of the Agra summit. Official sources say that infiltration
continues unabated in Uri, Gurez and Keran sectors where the Srinagar-based
15 Corps are in charge of security. The situation is pretty much the same
in Poonch and Rajouri sectors of the Nagrota-based 16 Corps. Signal intercepts
reveal that jehadis have been told by their Pakistani mentors to "take
advantage of the loc", as according to them the Indian Army is "complacent"
along the 540-km line.
The Indian Army's assessment is that Pakistan
will keep the loc active through infiltration and artillery firing. The
objective is to keep the loc simmering without escalating the artillery
duels. Militants of pan-Islamic outfits such as the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT),
Hizb-ul Mujahideen and Jaish-e-Mohammed will continue to test the counter-insurgency
grid in the coming days by taking advantage of the Indian security forces'
focus on the Amarnath pilgrimage. While the Pakistani guns have tried
to engage Indian positions in the Kargil sector, there has been intense
mortar shelling in the Keran sector-located south of the Mushkoh Valley-to
provide cover for the infiltrators. South of the Pir Panjal ranges, Pakistani
troops have intensified small arms fire in a bid to aid infiltration as
well as prevent India from fencing the border in the Jammu region. The
BSF and the Pakistan Rangers have also been exchanging small arms fire
on the international border in Jammu.
Lt-General Hari Mohan Khanna, former Northern
Army commander, says that it is normal for the Pakistanis to escalate
tension on the loc around the time of any Indo-Pak dialogue. According
to him, massacres of the Amarnath pilgrims for the second consecutive
year shows that militants want to sabotage any peace initiative in Kashmir.
Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, former Union home minister, agrees and says, "Common
people are being sandwiched in the war of nerves between the two countries."
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