MY first visit to Uri town, the latest target of a terror attack, was some 13 years ago. I was visiting the Valley as a journalist and not a tourist. The situation was such that from Jammu to Srinagar, there was fear of a terror strike. Only two dhabas were open. At one of the dhabas, a group of soldiers nearly took away our taxi, saying they were in hot chase of militants. The taxi driver pleaded against it. Fortunately, I had an Army letter authorising my visit to the forward areas. It saved the driver for that day.The Brigadier at Uri was warm and welcoming. He had deputed a young Captain to look after me. “Be safe, no adventurism,”  the Brigadier cautioned me in a chilling voice and a smile that gave me goose bumps. We drove in a Jonga on the zigzag road that climbed one hill and came down the other. The Jhelum, the de facto border between India and Pakistan, criss-crossed the Valley, flowing beautifully in the deep gorge. We passed tiny hamlets and apple and apricot orchards.The destination was an advanced military camp near a village called Sultan Dhakki, a few hundred metres short of the LoC. I was thrilled to inhale the aroma of roasted meat that wafted from somewhere in the vicinity. The Captain pointed down the hill towards two large vessels, where food was being cooked by soldiers in the open in the village common ground. That would be our dinner. I was delighted. But still worried about the night stay in bunkers. I needn’t have. After a few turns, we stood in front of an opening in a rocky hill. It was a khul ja sim sim experience. I could have fathomed that the Army had burrowed into the hills and created an accommodation, no less than a five-star stay.After bathing, we sat outside for a cup of tea and snacks. The spot was at a safe angle from the enemy behind the hills. “You will see Diwali at night as  rockets will fly,” chuckled the officer. His soldiers grinned.As we talked, the conversation veered around on how soldiers kept their mind off death and bullets. “I play chess,” the Captain said. “Voila! I too,”  I exclaimed. Soon, two armies were set in black and white on the chessboard. It took me no more than 10 moves to grab the rook and the queen. The officer was visibly hurt. He was losing in front of his jawans, who sat around us in a semicircle. He lost the second too, after much struggle. One last game, he said, ordering meat for both of us in a tone that expressed his anger. He won the third.Back in the lodge, he sipped beer and remarked: “I was flustered. It was not about losing or winning. It was about you killing my army while it had not moved from its squares. No jawan would like an officer, or for that matter a government, that lets this happen to them.”

Nawaz Sharif addresses UN General Assembly. REUTERS

TNS & Agencies

New Delhi/United Nations, September 21Raking up Kashmir at the UN, Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif today glorified slain Hizbul commander Burhan Wani as a “young leader” even as he expressed readiness for a “serious and sustained dialogue” with India for peaceful resolution of all outstanding disputes, especially Jammu and Kashmir.Sharif devoted much of his 20-minute speech at the UN General Assembly session to Kashmir and the situation in the Valley and said Pakistan “fully supports the demand of the Kashmiri people for self-determination”.(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)He demanded an “independent inquiry into the extra-judicial killings” and a UN fact-finding mission to Kashmir “so that the guiltyare punished”. Insisting that peace between Pakistan and India could not be achieved without solving the Kashmir dispute, he alleged human rights violations in the Valley. India blames Pakistan for engineering and fuelling the unrest in Kashmir.Talking about Kashmir, Sharif referred to Wani, who was killed in an encounter with the security forces on July 8, as a “young leader” and said he had “emerged as a symbol of the latest Kashmiri Intifada, a popular and peaceful freedom movement.” 

Nawazspeak at UNGA: Ready to discuss all issues

• Ready for a serious and sustained dialogue with India for peaceful resolution of all outstanding disputes, especially J&K
• There should be an independent inquiry into the extra-judicial killings (in Jammu and Kashmir) and the guilty should be punished
• Pakistan cannot ignore India’s unprecedented arms build-up and will take whatever measures are necessary to maintain deterrence

There are several sentry posts apart from a gate but the terrorists sneaked in undetected after cutting the fence… They came in army uniforms, their hair was cut short like army officers and none of them was sporting a beard. They did not look like a suicide squad… AN OFFICIAL

NEW DELHI: The four militants who carried out the audacious Uri strike that left 18 soldiers dead wore fatigues, entered the army base by cutting the fence and knew their way around the military complex, sources said.

Initial investigations reveal that the four fidayeen, or suicide attackers, reached the administrative base of the army camp, which is barely six kilometers from the line of control in northern Kashmir, by breaking through the fence.

“There are several sentry posts apart from a gate but the terrorists sneaked in undetected after cutting the fence,’’ an official who visited Uri with the army chief on Sunday told HT.

The four were dressed for the raid. “They came in army uniforms, their hair was cut short like army officers and none of them was sporting a beard. They did not look like a suicide squad…,’’ the official said.

The men, suspected to be members of the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad, seemed to know the camp layout.

Once inside, they moved towards the cook house and an adjoining shelter.

Armed with under-barrel grenade launchers, they fired grenades and rained bullets simultaneously, setting on fire the diesel barrels lying in the complex.

The flames soon engulfed the tents in which soldiers were still asleep. As soldiers trapped in burning tents screamed for help, three militant stayed close to each other, wreaking death. “Three terrorists were killed within 12 minutes of the first bullet being fired,” an army officer said. But, 17 soldiers, too, had died in those 12 minutes.

Quick reaction teams were called in to save the soldiers lodged in the administrative area, where troops don’t carry battle gear.

The fourth militant who broke from the group was killed barely 40 metres away from the officers’ enclave. During the mopping operation, it was found that the four men had shaved their chests – a hallmark of suicide attackers who purify themselves before certain death.

At a meeting in Srinagar, defence minister Manohar Parrikar wanted some answers — how the militants entered India and then sneaked into a highsecurity army camp.

The army investigating the “double breach”, he was told. It is not clear when the group crossed over into India. The undetected fence cut is a serious lapse. “It is a matter of inquiry. We are looking at the lapses and are tightening up security,” Lt Gen Satish Dua, Corps Commander, 15 Corps, said when asked about the breach.

AMRITSAR/CHANDIGARH: An alert has been sounded in Punjab’s border districts of Amritsar, Pathankot and Gurdaspur following the terror strike on an army camp at Uri in Jammu and Kashmir that claimed the lives of 17 jawans on Sunday.

HT PHOTOThe Border Security Force is keeping a close eye on any movement from across the fence after the terrorist attack on an army base at Uri in Jammu and Kashmir.

Tight vigil is being maintained near key installations, including the Pathankot Air Force base that had come under attack by militants earlier this year and near Indo-Pak border areas, police said.

The Border Security Force (BSF) has heightened security along the Indo-Pak border and at Attari checkpost, where thousands of tourists come every day to witness the retreat ceremony.

A BSF official told HT: “Troops have been alerted and vigil along the border has been heightened. More troops are being sent to the sensitive areas along the border in the Amritsar sector.” The vigil along the riverine border belt in the Ajnala sector has also been beefed up.

“An alert has been sounded in border districts of Pathankot and Gurdaspur in light of the terror attack in Uri,” Pathankot senior superintendent of police Rakesh Kaushal said. Police patrolling has been strengthened near sensitive areas in and around the city and vehicles coming from and going towards Jammu are being thoroughly checked, police said.

“We have also increased the number of police checkpoints in and outer parts of the city,” he said.

Earlier this year, terrorists who had sneaked in from across the border had attacked the Pathankot airbase on the intervening night of January 1-2 while Dinanagar in Gurdaspur was targeted on July 27 last year.

The Pathankot attack had claimed the lives of seven security personnel while four terrorists were killed.

Three heavily-armed terrorists wearing army fatigues had stormed a police station in Dinanagar town in Gurdaspur district last year killing seven persons, including a superintendent of police, before they were gunned down during a day-long operation.

Arun Joshi

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, September 18

Uri attack in which 17 soldiers were killed by four fidayeen on Sunday has served a lot of uninspiring messages to the country, and Kashmir in particular.The fidayeen who come with a high degree of commitment to die, deeply motivated, are not easy to neutralise. Invariably, they have inflicted more casualties than suffered. It happened on Sunday too.It is no secret that the attack had the familiar soundtrack of Pakistan’s deep involvement in this attack, for it is keen to mount as much pressure on India on Kashmir, internally and externally as it can. The state and the so-called non-state actors work in tandem. Uri was the reconfirmation of Pakistan using such audacious attacks as its foreign policy tool to achieve its targets.Since 1999, it is at predawn hour when attacks are mounted with grenades and gunfire from assault rifles on the bleary-eyed guards and soldiers. The necessary lessons, how to foil such attacks, are forgotten immediately after the alarm bells fade into the background.With the infiltration having gone up, and Pakistan committing more support to Kashmiris in their resistance against India and its non-state actors announcing mayhem, this attack was not unexpected. Militants had rehearsed it in Poonch just a few days ago. Poonch and Uri are border areas close to the Line of Control that divides Jammu and Kashmir between India and Pakistan.The loud noises that there was a full preparation to face any eventuality, despite the recurring images of the wreath-laying ceremonies of soldiers and paramilitaries presented a false sense of everything being hunky-dory.There are severe lapses, both in the intelligence network, counter-infiltration grid and the lack of response to the sudden assaults. That the infiltration was peaking and Uri has been a traditional route of infiltrators since the late 80s, the alert level appeared to be wanting.There are suggestions of the timings and the sabotage, which cannot be ruled out because in all the previous fidayeen attacks, there were more concertina wires on the front and the rear, more height was added to the boundary walls, but till date the human failures were not detected nor an attempt was made to find out what went wrong and how. The attack on the Pathankot airbase in January is just one example. The stress was on rituals rather than in zeroing in on the lapses.Militants were determined to strike in a big way after the big noises were made about the deployment of more troops in south Kashmir, reckoned as the nerve centre of the over two-month-long unrest which has consumed 80 lives and left thousands more injured. The virtue of secrecy was subjugated to the sound bites.The fallout of this attack would be that the agitators who have kept the unrest alive in Kashmir would get emboldened. Militants used guns, the protesters will use stones with furious intensity.The Uri attack, one of the deadliest, targeting the Army in recent decades, will also be a test to how New Delhi deals with this situation. Will its reaction be restricted to issuing usual statements, or will it go for an offensive — diplomatic or otherwise.

New Delhi, September 18

Enraged over the terror attack on an Army battalion in Uri, former Army officers today sought urgent action against Pakistan, including keeping the “military option open” to deal with terror from its soil. “We must have our military option open, if required to strike at certain places,” Lt Gen BS Jaswal (retd) said here.“Bring pickets, which have launch pad, to the ground, raze them to the ground. The reason is that till the time it does not hurt Pakistan physically, they would not understand our decency,” said Lt Gen Jaswal, who was GOC-in-C of the Northern Command.“Pakistan keeps doing it (terror strikes) time and again knowing that we would not take any action,” Major Gaurav Arya (retd), who has expertise in the security situation in Jammu and Kashmir, said.The problems in Kashmir are “systematically manufactured” at the General Headquarters in Rawalpindi, he alleged, adding “We must take immediate action. Stop trade with Pakistan, downgrade (its) Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status. The world must know we are serious.”Questioning the absence of two service chiefs at the meeting chaired by Home Minister Rajnath Singh, former Army Chief General Shankar Roy Chowdhury said these actions were coming from Pakistan. “We have this meeting chaired by No 2 in the government, that is the Home Minister, where the RAW chief and CRPF chief are present. Who is doing these actions (terror attacks)? It is coming from across the border, from Pakistan,” he said.“Is the CRPF chief going to look at Pakistan? Where are the Chief of Army and Chief of Naval Staff? Why they were not available to give (advice on) strategic action to the Government,” he asked. — PTI

EXPERTVIEW

We must have our military option open, if required to strike at certain places. — Lt Gen BS Jaswal (retd) Preventing a suicide attack is difficult, but damage control is always possible. — Lt Gen SA Hasnain (retd)No defences are foolproof, though we aim to make it so but the essence is reaction. — Gen KJ Singh (retd)Pakistan keeps doing it (terror strikes) time and again knowing that we will not take any action. — Major Gaurav Arya (retd)

ribune News Service

Dehradun, September 10

Governor KK Paul and Chief Minister Harish Rawat have expressed grief over the death of Lance Naik Shiv Shanker Chhetri of Gorkha Rifles, who attained martyrdom in a freak accident while patrolling the Kupwara area of Jammu and Kashmir.The Chief Minister laid a floral wreath on the body of Lance Naik Chhetri. He also met his family members and offered his condolences. He said Chhetri has carried forward the legacy of bravery that had been part of the physic of Uttarakhandi people.Similarly, on behalf of the Governor, the protocol officer laid a floral wreath on the martyr’s body.

References to Baluchistan,

Gilgit-Baltistan and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK)  on Independence Day by the Prime Minister set the cat among the pigeons. It helps prove just how little the strategic community of India and the world had earlier focused on these contentious aspects, especially Baluchistan. It has created a strategic turbulence of sorts in Pakistan itself, has got exiled Baloch people in the US and elsewhere gingered up, and produced strategic analyses in reams. India fully aware of this Achilles heel of Pakistan has desisted from raising the issue to embarrass Pakistan despite all the intimidation the latter has done in and on Jammu & Kashmir (J&K).

Baluchistan is a complex issue with an emotive, political and strategic connection. It has rarely been discussed in India or elsewhere and knowledge on it is largely deficient. The PM’s remarks have got Pakistan so riled that it has booked a couple of Baloch leaders for having supported the Indian Prime Minister’s remarks. The former Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai has come out in support of human rights in Baluchistan. Bangladesh which has an awkward connect to the issue too has supported the call for greater human rights for the Baloch people. However, in India there has been divided opinion with the political opposition questioning the need for raising the issue when India does not even enjoy the benefit of a common boundary with Baluchistan. Others objected to the raising of the issue when India itself had an ongoing internal problem with the turbulence in Kashmir. The Baluchistan issue has also become important because of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) on which China is investing 46 bn USD. A major part of this corridor lies in Baluchistan as does the port of Gwadar which connects the corridor to the sea.

India has no claim over the territory of Baluchistan and does not contest Pakistan’s rights over it. So what is Baluchistan all about and how does it enter into the India-Pakistan equation? Without too much detail it is perhaps suffice to know that much like Hyderabad and  Junagadh’s integration with India, Baluchistan also did not have a smooth integration  with Pakistan in 1947. There have been a series of uprisings at intervals of few years. The Baloch people want greater autonomy, increased royalties from provincial revenue  and natural resources which are in abundance in their region and, and an independent nation-state status. It is Pakistan’s largest state (40 percent of the land mass) but also it’s poorest, with a population of 13 million. The Baloch people exist in a region which is across three countries; Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran. The alienation that exists among the people is almost akin to that which existed in East Pakistan, a result of ham handed domination of the Pakistan narrative by the West Punjabis. The one event in recent history which probably raised the Baloch sensitivity by many notches was the killing of their leader Nawab Akbar Bugti by the Pakistan Army on direct orders of Parvez Musharaf.

Pakistan’s geo-strategic importance to nations that matter dictates much of the discourse. It has been a frontline state for the US through much of its history and for China it remains a strategic asset. India’s relationship with Pakistan though thorny has also been about noninterference in its internal affairs. This was especially since the period of former Prime Minister Inder Gujral (1997-8) whose doctrine was all about a benign policy towards the neighbors. Thus, despite Pakistan’s active support for the Punjab terrorists through the Eighties and the switch to even more active interference amounting to proxy war in J&K since 1989, India considered two things as anathema. First was the issue of water; never did it consider using threats relating to Indus Waters Treaty 1960 even when it was subjected to heinous terrorist attacks such as 13/12 and 26/11. Second, it never mentioned a word about Baluchistan even though the potential for exploitation always existed. This strategy placed India on a high horse of morality which has assisted in it attaining much respect in the international community. It is this moral ascendancy which is being referred to by many analysts with the deduction that a carefully crafted international image may receive a hit due to Mr Modi’s sudden turnaround in mentioning the ‘B’ word.

There are other objections from the analyst community which perceives that Iran may be unhappy with India supporting the human rights cause in Baluchistan. Such support is many times taken as backing for separatism. Separatist tendencies of Pakistan’s Baloch province will have its spin off effects on Iran’s people of the same ethnicity. Then there is Kashmir; there is this thought that by raking up Baluchistan we in India were making ourselves vulnerable to international inquisitiveness about our human rights record too.

For many years and more emphatically now, Pakistan has been using every possible propaganda tool to color India black with accusations of our interference in its internal affairs. The home grown terror campaign by the Tehreek e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the high intensity contestation of the Pakistan security forces by smaller groups is once again placed at the door step of India in the blame game. So with the demonization of India at every stage it had become almost routine, a virtual force of habit to castigate it for imaginary intervention in Pakistan’s affairs. Mr Nawaz Sharif’s recent remarks immediately after the suicide attack on the Quetta lawyers and follow up on Pakistan’s Independence Day did not hold back anything.

So, if Mr Modi decides to mention Baluchistan and focus on the human rights situation there how should this be taken by his domestic constituency? The first thought; it is testing the waters, getting the feel by forcing the adversary to respond, bring irrationality in his utterances and just unnerve him and the entire security establishment. Very used to the customary transactional responses from India, this one which is slightly below the belt nevertheless gets a standing count. It riles the Pakistani psyche which for many years has got used to India’s defensive stance.

 Those who perceive that with Kashmir unstable this wasn’t the time to play quid pro quo also say that our moral standing has taken a beating. They need to consider whether one should instigate when one’s house is stable or when the adversary is pressurizing you. You actually have to do it to force the adversary to pull back from his intent.

India’s routine response to Pakistan’s diatribes against it has been outright denial. It obtains no advantage. However, when a single word is spoken at the right time its effect is electric. Pakistan is already worried about India’s second coming in Afghanistan after Ashraf Ghani’s turnaround. The signing of the Trilateral Chahbahar Agreement opens another avenue for strengthening India Afghanistan relations. It is from that direction that Pakistan fears India’s interference since no physical boundary between Baluchistan and India exists. It is not helpful towards building future India Pakistan relations but the probable intent of Mr Modi was only to signal that two can play this game and that India in future would meet Pakistan’s attempts at interference in Kashmir.

In India’s security domain one of its weakest links is Information Warfare; the ability to play mind games, keeping the adversary on tenterhooks about the next move and taking the battle into the domain of smart warfare. Since for the umpteenth time Pakistan could raise the temperatures in Kashmir, after the recent killing of Burhan Wani, perhaps a little experiment is what the Modi mind is attempting. Remember Pakistan’s chaotic internal security situation and obsession with seeking its space in Afghanistan leaves it little time for Kashmir. Cornering it by imposing caution and giving enough signals about the future intent being in the same domain as that of Pakistan in Kashmir, could force a rethink. However, a one off smart move which has had strategic overtones needs sustenance for continuing effectiveness. We will have to wait and watch how Mr Modi takes this game forward.

(Adapted by the author from his article in Governance Now)