THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE FOR COMMANDERS ON THE GROUND IS TO STRIKE A BALANCE BETWEEN KEEPING THE TROOPS BATTLE READY, AND ENSURING THAT THEY ARE NOT WORN OUT.

On the Line of Control (LoC), life is no picnic. Yet, a year ago, soldiers could break the monotony of keeping the troubled border under watch with occasional leisure activities. Sometimes, this meant a game of chess or carrom. Or flipping through a Bollywood glossy. Soldiers would even soak in the breathtaking beauty of the treacherous mountains.
GURINDER OSAN/HT PHOTO
Indian Army soldiers at forward posts in front of the illuminated fence in Hamirpur area near Bhimber Gali, about 180 km north west of Jammu. Soldiers barely get four hours of sleep when the situation on the border is tense.
Back then, when this correspondent toured the LoC for a week, things may not have been rosy but they weren’t this tense. Pakistani provocations had compelled India to shed a culture of restraint and lift a self-imposed restriction on using artillery guns. Border violations peaked in intensity and numbers last September, leaving the 2003 ceasefire in tatters.
But the LoC was never as volatile as it is now in the aftermath of Thursday’s surgical strikes by India’s Special Forces, the first direct military response to the Uri attack that left 19 men dead. “The strikes across the LoC are only the first step. It is an ongoing operation and we expect and are preparing for a retaliation,’’ says a Valley-based officer. A localised conflict can spread rapidly along the LoC.
The life of men guarding the de facto border has undergone a sea change, as the army is on its highest alert level to deal with a counter-offensive from Pakistan. There are serious concerns about hostilities escalating. So there’s absolutely no question of soldiers tossing a volleyball around, watching TV or finding time to prepare for a promotion exam.
Apart from leave restrictions amid heightened tensions, they are also getting less sleep, say army officers serving at the LoC. “Leisure activities are totally ruled out. The focus is on operational readiness and nothing else,” points out an officer on condition of anonymity. The soldiers have orders to retaliate with lethal force to any aggression.

If soldiers were getting six hours of sleep before hostilities spiked, they are now making do with barely four hours. Another officer explains, “Sleep is a casualty as we want maximum manpower available at all times. We have to guard all flanks, given the build-up on the other side.”

The army has intensified patrolling along the LoC and is keeping a cautious watch on a maze of routes infiltrators could take. Rogue border action teams could strike anytime — remember Hemraj’s beheading and the cold-blooded killing of five Indian soldiers in Poonch three years ago?

“When the situation is normal, you can sometimes afford to man infiltration routes selectively. That could be suicidal now,” says the officer. The army’s contingency plans are in place and the possibility of a flare up has been factored in.

“In its efforts to show it is equally strong, Pakistan may just repeat what India has done. But it’s fully aware that such as action would amount to an act of war,” says former army vice chief Lieutenant General AS Lamba (retd).

How Pakistan reacts is anybody’s guess. A senior army officer in Delhi says no matter what course the adversary takes, the army is prepared to deal with it. But the shadows of Pathankot and Uri loom large.

“We will dominate the conflict at any level of the escalation ladder,” he says, adding Pakistan may respond now, in a week or several months later. Battle readiness is constantly being reviewed. India cannot afford another Uri.

The biggest challenge for commanders on the ground is to strike a balance between keeping the troops battle ready and ensuring they aren’t worn out. “You can’t keep them on highest alert level for a year. We are monitoring how things unfold,” he says.

Last September, this correspondent visited several posts along a 224-km stretch of the 740 km-long LoC. At one such post in Poonch sector, guarded by one of the army’s largest brigades with nine battalions, I met a 22-year-old Gorkha soldier who had just returned from a punishing patrol.

There was chicken and rice for dinner but he was keener on reading some current affairs’ magazines tucked under his pillow. He was trying to make time to study for an exam that could fulfil his dream of becoming an army officer. His commanding officer called me a few months later breaking the news that the soldier had passed the exam.

Some of those dreams may be on the back burner now. A lot has changed at the LoC – except the stunning landscape dotted with towering ridges, dense pine groves, lush valleys and maize fields.

Lahore, September 30

Pakistan Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif on Friday termed the Simla Agreement signed by India and Pakistan after the 1971 war a “big mistake” as it “hurt the Kashmiri freedom struggle”.Shahbaz is the brother of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. His statement evoked sharp criticism from the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), whose then chairman and Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and his Indian counterpart Indira Gandhi signed the pact in 1972. “Someone should teach the CM what foreign policy is,” tweeted PPP chairperson Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.The agreement resulted in the release of some 90,000 Pakistani soldiers imprisoned by India following the 1971 war. — IANS

New Delhi: Less than two weeks after the Uri terror attack, the Ministry of Defence has okayed an electronic warfare system to enhance the Army’s capability to fight a low-intensity conflict in Jammu and Kashmir.The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC), which met  under the chairmanship of Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, okayed the Rs 330-crore project. This would include equipment that would not only jam gadgets, including mobile phones, radio transmitters and thermal imagers, but also access the conversation of suspects. There would also be a set of sensors to pick the movement of the targeted people. The DAC also approved the purchase of Anti-Tank Guided Missiles (ATGMs) and a new repair facility for Scorpene submarines at the Mumbai naval dockyard. — TNS

Pak envoy was given details of two guides who helped terrorists reach the Uri camp. — File photo

New Delhi, September 27

For the second time in less than 10 days, India’s Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar on Tuesday issued a demarche to Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit over Uri attack and confronted him with proof of “cross-border origins” of the terror strike in which 18 jawans were killed.The Foreign Secretary called in Basit and told him that the preliminary interrogation reveals identity of one of the slain Uri attackers as Hafiz Ahmed, son of Feroz and a resident of Dharbang, Muzaffarabad, and also gives details of Pakistan-based handlers, MEA Spokesperson Vikas Swarup said.

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“Local villagers in the Uri sector apprehended on September 21 and handed over to Indian security forces two individuals from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir who have acted as guides for terrorists and helped them infiltrate across the Line of Control (LoC).“Their particulars are: Yasin Khurshid (19), s/o Mohammed Khurshid and a resident of Khiliana Kalan in Muzzaffarabad, and Faizal Hussain Awan (20), s/o Gul Akbar and from Potha Jahangir, also in Muzzaffarabad,” Basit was told.The NIA has taken custody of the duo arrested in its probe in the attack.During his interrogation, Awan has deposed to the NIA that they had “guided and facilitated” the border crossing of the group that perpetrated the September 18 Uri massacre, the Foreign Secretary told him.In another incident on September 23, 2016, one Pakistani national, Abdul Qayoom, resident of Sialkot, was apprehended in Molu sector opposite Pakistan’s Sialkot sector and has confessed to undergoing three weeks of training with the terrorist group LeT and donating substantial funds to Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation, their front organisation, Basit was conveyed.“We are willing to provide the Pakistan High Commission consular access to these three individuals apprehended in connection with terrorist attacks in India,” the Foreign Secretary told the Pakistani envoy.Basit was also told that these apprehensions and subsequent interrogation underline the cross-border infiltration that had been the subject of their previous discussion.“We would once again strongly urge the Government of Pakistan to take seriously its commitment not to allow terrorist attacks against India from its soil and territory under its control. Continuing cross-border terrorist attacks from Pakistan against India are unacceptable,” Jaishankar asserted.This is the second time since the attack on September 18 that the Pakistani envoy has been summoned over the terror strike which India maintains was carried out by Pakistan-based terror groups.New Delhi has already offered to provide Pakistan with fingerprints and DNA samples of terrorists killed in Uri and Poonch, if that country wished to investigate these cross-border attacks. — Agencies

One of the most professionally satisfying experiences of my life was the two years I spent in command of the Kala Pahar Brigade at Uri. This brigade occupies and defends some crucial areas of our country.

At first, a few basics for the reader. It was through the Uri salient that the kabalis (tribals) advanced towards Baramulla and Srinagar in 1947, triggering the first Indo-Pak war. It was here again, in 1965, that Major Ranjit Dayal led the assault on Haji Pir (in PoK) which won him the Mahavir Chakra. Even without wars this is the area where the longest, most intense artillery duels have been fought across the LoC making the then Commander, Brig (later Lt Gen) Jasbir Lidder, coin the famous credo, “when Uri rumbles, Chakothi crumbles”. Chakothi, of course is located on the PoK side of the LoC.

No Boundary Wall in the Garrison Town

The sneak attack in the morning of 18 September has not been against expectations. While one can find fault at the tactical level with tactical security drills, the number of sentries and the like, that is hardly significant. The malaise is in the thinking and that includes my own.

The road to the border cuts through the garrison and is used by all civilian motor and pedestrian traffic, though with strict checking and control.

Even at the height of sneak terror attacks in 1999-2003, it was not considered a priority to construct a boundary wall for this garrison. The assumption was that terror attacks would take place in the Valley while action at the LoC would be artillery and small arms duels between the two armies. The garrison is 6 kms crow flight from the LoC.

Uri has never had resident militancy. The brigade prides itself on its conventional war fighting and ‘No War No Peace’ roles on the LoC, the rear has been perceived as less important. Since security is a basic principle of war, operational prudence demands equal focus on the Brigade HQ on the basis that no areas are safe.

Also Read: Uri Attack: Remember the Names, Faces, the People They Left Behind

 

POINT OF DEBATE The creation of Bangladesh is seen as Delhi’s most successful intervention but the relationship is now marred by contentious bilateral disputes

NEW DELHI: On the night of July 1 this year, five young men attacked a Dhaka cafe and took control of hostages. By the next morning, 29 people were killed. The incident reflected growing Islamist radicalisation of a section of Bangladesh’s youth and represented how far the country had come from its original vision of a secular, plural and tolerant state.

HT FILEThen Indian PM Indira Gandhi signs an agreement with her Bangladeshi counterpart Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on May 16, 1974.

Take another instance. Each time Bangladesh’s International Criminal Tribunal decides to sentence those complicit in the 1971 mass killings — men who aided the Pakistan Army in suppressing liberation forces, and are seen as traitors — the decision is greeted with a sense of vindication by the ruling Awami League. But it also sparks outrage and anger among the Opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its key ally, Jamaat-e-Islami, many of whose leaders have been hanged.

In many ways, Bangladesh is still fighting the battles of 1971. The domestic political tension between the two Begums — Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Opposition leader Khaleda Zia — itself emanates from a debate over ‘who owns the narrative of 1971, and who secured freedom’, as Salil Tripathi, the author of a book on Bangladesh’s modern history, puts it.

India played a part in these events; it has been considered Delhi’s most successful neighbourhood intervention. But the intervention did not create the kind of pliant state that Delhi would have hoped. As India prepares to engage with another internal movement in Pakistan, the experience offers lessons. THE VERDICT UNDERMINED In the December 1970 elections in Pakistan, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s Pakistan’s People Party won 88 out of 144 seats in the west; Sheikh Mujibur Rehman’s Awami League — who had promised autonomy — swept the east, winning all but two of the 169 seats. This gave him an absolute majority. The mandate was an outcome of the accumulated resentment among the Bangla-speaking east against the political, economic and cultural domination of the Punjabi-dominated West Pakistan establishment. The establishment could not tolerate the prospect of being ruled by Mujib, nor countenance a polity with autonomous units. Bhutto had another personal element: he wanted to rule Pakistan himself.

President Yahya Khan postponed convening the assembly. Rebellion broke out in the east. The army was sent in to crack down on protests.

Mujib asked for Indian help — military and food supplies, communication and transportation facilities. Historian Srinath Raghavan reveals in his book, 1971, that initially India was ‘circumspect’. As late as 1970, there was a fear that an independent East Pakistan may unite with West Bengal to form a unified Bengal. Delhi also thought that Islamabad and Dhaka may well come to an agreement soon. It was also not sure of Mujib, who had kept a ‘distance from Indian contacts’. THE TRIUMPH But the repression continued. Together with a section of loyalists called Razakars, the Pakistan Army launched a brutal campaign and mass killings — the current tribunal seeks to bring these crimes to justice. This slowly led to an exodus of millions of refugees into India, with camps set up across eastern states. Indian public opinion was now furious at the evolving genocide.

In his important book, The Blood Telegram, Gary Bass writes India was “motivated by a mix of lofty principle and brutal realpolitik”. Pakistan was an enemy, and this was an opportunity to split, weaken and devastate it.

By the summer, India was training guerrilla fighters who constituted Mukti Bahini — but even at this stage, it was not contemplating a direct military role. India also stepped up its international campaign, conveying to the world Pakistan Army’s aggression in the east and the burden of refugees on India.

The US, despite relentless Indian efforts, did not lean enough on Pakistan to stop its killings and find a political solution; China too supported Pakistan. The US position was driven by president Richard Nixon and diplomat Henry Kissinger — despite the opposition from Archer Blood, the American Consul General in Dhaka. This pushed PM Indira Gandhi closer to the Soviets, and in August 1971, signed a treaty with the USSR.

Meanwhile, border tensions grew. In early December, Pakistan attacked and war broke out. The Indian army, with the support of Mukti Bahini and East Pakistan civilians, now made its way into the east. It recognised the provisional government of Bangladesh. By midDecember, Pakistan had surrendered.

Indira Gandhi announced, “Dacca is now the free capital of a free country.”

India was elated. It was, as the public intellectual and political theorist Pratap Bhanu Mehta has put it, “one of the world’s most successful cases of humanitarian intervention against genocide”. India had, he suggests, applied the Responsibility to Protect Principle, much before it was designed.

Sreeradha Datta and Krishnan Srinivasan capture the mood following the victory in an essay in the Oxford Handbook of Indian Foreign Policy, “This was the death blow to Jinnah’s two-nation doctrine; Indian foreign policy had triumphed, backed up by force of arms. The Americans and Chinese…had been trumped, leaving a compliant and secular Bangladesh, grateful for the Indian sacrifice and support.” The cheer was understandable; but all the assumptions did not turn out to be accurate. WHAT WORKED, WHAT DIDN’T Looking back, Tripathi told HT India played its hand ‘brilliantly’. “It was right on the moral and legal plane. It observed international refugee law and allowed refugees regardless of religion or language. It internationalised their tragedy. It offered space to the government in exile. It offered tactical and technical support to sector commanders of the liberation army. Its intelligence operators scanned the territory.” And he adds, “India waited and waited, and did not pre-empt military action. It was also wise in withdrawing troops within three months.”

Raghavan has a somewhat mixed assessment, feels there was nothing inevitable about Bangladesh’s creation or Indian capture of Dhaka, and notes Indira Gandhi’s assessment was “more tentative and improvisational than is usually assumed”. He is also sympathetic to the late strategic guru K Subrahmanyam and Mujib’s view that India should have intervened earlier, in the summer of 1971, which would have saved many lives, and limited the flow of refugees and pain of displacement.

The intervention did split Pakistan and tilt the balance of power sharply in India’s favour. But contrary to Indian hopes, Dhaka was no puppet. And there cropped up contentious bilateral issues — from security to water disputes.

Within four years of the liberation, the army had taken over, Mujib’s whole family was assassinated, except his daughter, Sheikh Hasina, the Islamic — rather than the Bengali identity — of Bangladesh was emphasised, and India was left with barely any role. With the return of democracy in 1990, one pole of Bangladeshi politics was taken over by BNP, which defined itself in terms of opposition to India, flirted with Islamism, and turned a blind eye to terrorism as well as attacks against minorities.

With the Awami back in power, through an election which the BNP boycotted, India today has a friendly government, but the politics remains fluid and contested. The radicalisation has been shepherded by Jamaat — which opposed liberation in the first place — as an increasingly authoritarian Awami claims to defend the founding values of the nation.

What is, however, not in doubt is that 1971 had huge consequences. From the Simla Agreement, which formalised the LoC in Kashmir, to deep feelings of humiliation in Pakistan, which has driven — at least partly — its Islamist turn, Kashmir policy or Kargil adventure and the nature of political competition in Bangladesh itself, India’s intervention has shaped South Asia since.

WASHINGTON: The United States has urged Pakistan to cooperate in the investigation into the terrorist attack on the Indian army facility in Jammu and Kashmir’s Uri on Sunday, suggesting, by implication, Islamabad can indeed help.

A state department spokesman said Wednesday US secretary of state John Kerry “discussed the incident” with Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif when they met on the sidelines of the UN general assembly on Sunday. “The secretary urged Pakistani cooperation in the investigation,” the spokesman added.

The US also offered to help with investigations into the attack, which left 18 Indian soldiers dead, in a phone call by deputy secretary of state Anthony Blinken to foreign secretary S Jaishankar.

India has said the attack was carried out by Jaish-eMohammad, a Pakistan-based terrorist outfit that was also blamed for the attack on Indian airbase in Pathankot in January.

A source said while the US had strongly condemned the attack then, as it has now, it had not followed up by asking Pakistan to cooperate in the investigation. “Implied here in the present instance is a suggestion of a certain leverage Islamabad has with these groups,” the source added, pointing to a similar call from the US after the 2008 Mumbai attacks carried out by another Pakistanbased group Lashkar-e-Taiba.

The spokesman also addressed the question of US policy on Kashmir, saying, “The US position on Kashmir has not changed. It is an issue for India and Pakistan to resolve.”

There were reports in Pakistan media that Prime Minister Sharif had urged secretary Kerry at their Sunday meeting for US intervention to resolve the dispute.

Sharif got a more positive response from his Chinese counterpart Li Keqiang, who said Wednesday, according to Pakistan Radio, “We stand by Pakistan and will continue to raise our voice in Pakistan’s support at every forum. We attach great importance to Pakistan’s position on Kashmir.”

Asked who the US believed was behind the Uri attack, the state department spokesman said, “We are still awaiting further information. We have offered our assistance to the government of India, and we also urge Pakistan to cooperate in the ongoing investigation.”

Lucknow/Ranchi/Patna: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav today announced financial aid of Rs 20 lakh each to the families of four jawans killed in Sunday’s terrorist attack in Kashmir. A government spokesperson said: “The Chief Minister has announced a financial assistance of Rs 20 lakh each to the families of four jawans killed in the terrorist attack.” The Chief Minister condoled the death of Army personnel and said the country would remember the great sacrifice made by them. Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das announced assistance of Rs 10 lakh each to the families of two soldiers killed in the Uri attack. He assured government help to the families as well. He paid tributes to the martyrs and said they would be accorded state funeral. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar announced Rs 5 lakh each as ex gratia to the next of kin of the three soldiers killed in the terror attack. He announced that the martyrs would be accorded full state honours. — TNS/PTI

The entire nation is entitled to feel enraged that 17 soldiers should have lost lives at the hands of four ‘fidayeen’ attackers from across the Line of Control in the Uri sector in Jammu and Kashmir in Sunday’s wee hours. The Prime Minister has spoken for the entire country when he correctly asserted that those behind the attack would not be allowed to go unpunished. The Union Home Minister, too, has called a spade a spade and minced no word in mentioning Pakistan’s involvement in the Sunday morning outrage. The whole country salutes the brave men and officers of the Indian Army.The Uri assault cannot be brushed away as yet another ‘incident’. Pakistan is ratcheting up tension, violence and instability all along the India-Pakistan border. Islamabad is testing New Delhi’s patience and will. The Modi government will expectedly find itself under angry public opinion — already being worked up by 24×7 news outlets — to come up with a muscular response. The Uri attack is being catalogued as the sixth major terror attack in the past nine months. The Modi national security establishment will also feel the heat from its own mentors in the Sangh Parivar.Though we should never be averse to any escalation of tensions or to even a confrontation with Pakistan, as a mature and stable nation it is incumbent that we try to avoid the trap of a knee-jerk response. Our answers and responses need to be steadied, smart and efficacious. And to be sure, our response need not be defined only in military terms. There are a whole range of punitive options, short of a full-scale war, available to the government. And, only the government can have an appreciation of those choices and it is only the government that can make the over-all cost-benefit analysis of any particular response. Nor is it necessary that our response should come here and now, or be even openly spelled out. All that the government needs to know is that it will have the support of the entire nation in whatever manner it chooses to respond — just as Pakistan should know that terror tactics will not unnerve India.

FEROZEPUR: The Indian army constructed a new bailey bridge over Hussainiwala Barrage, situated about 10km away from Ferozepur.

HT PHOTOArmy jawans constructing a bailey bridge over the Hussainiwala barrage in Ferozepur on Sunday.

It is worth to mention that during 1971 Indo-Pak hostilities, a portion of Hussainiwala Bridge was damaged,

The army had put up a bailey bridge for sustenance of villages inside Hussainiwala, the last village along the IndoPak border in Ferozepur.

Now, a permanent bridge will be made to complete the damaged portion of existing bridge, for which, army has made an alternate bailey bridge to ensure unhindered connectivity to Hussainiwala.

The civil administration and people of Hussainiwala welcomed the development, as the new bridge will pave way for permanent bridge without causing any inconvenience to local population and ensuring continuous traffic movement for local people as well as tourists.

The Army engineers constructed the bridge in spite of limited space, at a working height of over 50 feet and in flood like situations necessitating several precautions like use of safety ropes and nets.