Govt. Intercepts Messages from Across Pak Border, Troops May Be Deployed Beyond Oct
GOVERNMENT has definite reports that Pakistan intends to step up violence in Jammu and Kashmir to disrupt the assembly polls, defence minister George Fernandes said today, asserting that armed forced would act decisively to "overpower" all such attempts.
Declaring that the Government had in its possession "in-numerable intercepts" between militant headquarters located in Pakistan and various groups active in Kashmir, Mr. Fernandes said these messages gave instructions to militants on the ways to disrupt elections, how to get rid of candidates and eliminate campaigners.
Asserting that government would taken no chances whatsoever with elections in the state, the defence minister said, if necessary it would consider keeping the forward deployment of troops on the borders even beyond October.
"Elections will be free and fair. The government is determined to ensure that these polls are violence free", the defence minister told Doordarshan in an interview.
Mr. Fernandes said though the past few months had seen a 20 to 30% drop in infiltration, with the poll process being set in motion, Islamabad had stepped up efforts to push in mercenary militants into the state and cited the abortive bid to sneak in a big group of 18 mercenaries across the Line of Control in Kupwara frontier on Saturday night.
"But with an estimated 3,000 militants
already inside Indian territory pushing in more would hardly make a difference",
the minister said, adding that though violence was inevitable, the armed
forces would take adequate steps to foil any attempts to disrupt the elections.