Author:
Publication: Newsinsight.net
Date: November 29, 2004
URL: http://newsinsight.net/nati2.asp?recno=3058
Contradicting Union home-minister
Shivraj Patil's contention of sixty per cent reduction in terrorist infiltration
in Jammu and Kashmir, the army says a figure between five-ten per cent
is more accurate, and officers are disconcerted by the UPA government's
decision for general troops reduction from the state.
The army says that while the winter
and snowed-up passes have brought down the number of infiltrators, there
is no reduction in the number of infiltration attempts, and if the troops
are thinned out, the penetrations would rise.
"Just as the army is prepared to
face the winter," said an officer, "so are the terrorists, who are now
protected by cold-weather clothes of the Pakistan army and SSG."
Nor is there cost-saving, because
to keep troops in the high mountain passes in Drass, Kargil, Batalik and
Muskoh costs less than the ten-fourteen sorties which are daily necessary
to patrol the area following their withdrawal.
But worst for the Indian Army is
field intelligence that General Parvez Musharraf has ordered his LoC units
to closely monitor Indian troops' reduction, and officers say the gathered
details suggest Pakistan could be planning a military offensive, or a massive
terrorist infiltration in Spring 2005, dressed up as an all-Kashmiri insurrection.
"If you consider the troops withdrawal
as a political step," said an officer, "you would expect the other side
to take it as such, a broad CBM, but they are looking at it from a military
angle, almost studying the possibilities for a successful strike."
