Author: Manoj Joshi
Publication: The Times
of India
Date: August 24, 2000
Army officers are seething
at what they say is an ``inspired'' campaign to malign their image.
Their main complaint is over a pattern of news reports that claim the Army
has ``lost'' a Kargil height, Point 5353, to Pakistan, and made the Zoji
La-Kargil road vulnerable to Pakistani shelling.
A senior Army officer
told The Times of India that this was nothing but the use of the Goebbelsian
technique ``of repeating a lie to make it appear true''. According
to him, ``Point 5353 through which the Line of Control passes was never
in our control, so there is no question of losing it''.
Pakistani officials have
been quick to take advantage of the spate of reports claiming that India
is somehow at a disadvantage in this area. The chief of Pakistan's
Inter-Services public relations, Brig Rashid Qureshi, claimed last week
that Pakistan could cut the Zoji La-Leh road anytime it wanted. Considering
the Pakistani failure to do so after a surprise attack last year, this
comment is being seen as designed to whip up a divisive debate in India.
According to Army officers,
the LoC in this area follows an imaginary line connecting high points such
as Points 5070, 5353, 5245 and 5608, the numerals being the altitude of
the high points in the mountain range depicted in metres. The factual
position is that Indian forces control the highest one, Point 5608, and
the Pakistanis control Point 5353 because of the way the terrain lies.
India's own post is located at a stone's throw from Point 5240.
The burden of the campaign,
say Army officers, is the charge that by ``losing'' control of this peak,
the Army has allowed Pakistan to gain a post that provides them observation
of the Zoji La-Kargil Road. ``We have conducted what is called an
intervisibility exercise on a detailed contour map and concluded that the
Pakistanis can, at best, observe some 0.5-1 km of the road from a point
11.5 km away as a crow flies.'' Officers who have served in the Kargil
conflict say that they doubt the Pakistanis have even this much visibility
considering the lay of the land and the siting of the road.
A senior artillery officer
who had served in the area says that the Pakistanis already have stretches
of the road under observation from three posts on their side of the LoC
to the east of this area called Taimur, Point 5108 and Twin Bumps.
According to him, India has the advantage in terms of stretches of road
that can be brought under artillery fire. ``Several of our posts
offer us unrivalled visibility to the Palawar-Bunyal Road along the Shingo
river in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir,'' he says.
A senior general speaking
on the condition of confidentiality told this paper that the issue is not
Point 5353 but the nature of the Indo-Pak engagement in the area.
The ceasefire line is an artificial one and both sides have over the years
taken advantage of encroaching on areas considered indefensible by the
other. ``This is akin to the way in which people expand their gardens
by encroaching on public land in some Delhi colonies,'' he said.
Without wanting to disclose figures, he said that if anything, India has
been a gainer in this game of encroachment.
