Arun Joshi

Tribune News Service

Jammu, May 3

The Line of Control is very hot as evidenced by the mutilation of two jawans by the Pakistan army in the Krishna Ghati sector in Jammu and Kashmir on Monday. It can be defused only with a revisit to the terms of the 2003 ceasefire that brought peace to borders and enabled the border residents and soldiers to discover what normal life is.On papers, the terms exist, but on the ground the ceasefire violation is dotting most of the LoC, especially in the Jammu region and Kashmir valley, while Ladakh has been mercifully quiet for over a decade.The LoC is a very difficult 746-km dividing line, starting from the Chicken Neck in Akhnoor and then rising to the Pir Panjal range and the Trans-Himalayas before concluding on the edge of the Siachen Glacier. It traverses through gorges, mountains and dense forests. Soldiers deployed here battle with so many dangers all at once: the sniper fire, mortar shelling, hordes of groups of armed men out to unleash terror and Pakistan’s Border Action Team (BAT) from the other side.Pakistan sent a chilling message through the mutilation of two Indian soldiers, and Rawalpindi will continue with its murderous campaign on borders and hinterland in this state.The BAT action is nothing new on the LoC. Both sides have done it. Tit for tat was a routine between 2000 and 2003. It all started when the Al-Badr terror outfit beheaded two Indian soldiers in 2000.This continued till the ceasefire was effected on the LoC and international border in November 2003, a high moment of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Pervez Musharraf era in India and Pakistan.The intriguing part of the Monday episode was that the Indian patrol came under fire from four sides, as described by the BSF ADG. There was no escape route for the patrol party personnel. BAT had already intruded deep inside this side of the LoC. This raises a number of questions. How could BAT intrude? Why didn’t Indian forward posts take note of the firing at such a scale on the LoC? “The answers must come. The terrain is the biggest treacherous factor along the LoC, where one misstep can make a difference between life and death, especially when Pakistan is bent upon increasing the infiltration and making the borderline hot to keep the Kashmir issue alive in the international community.Even if you deploy the entire Indian Army along the LoC, there still would be breaches caused by gorges, cliffs and the mountainous passes, Gen VP Malik had observed in 1999 during the Kargil war.The only way out is to revisit the 2003 ceasefire and re-invoke its spirit. BAT will disappear as it did 14 years ago.