Tribune News Service

Srinagar, October 23

The Army said today that more than 3,000 local youths appeared for the common entrance examination (CEE) for recruitment in the Army, thus defying the separatists’ protest calls.According to an Army statement : “After successful recruitment rallies in south Kashmir’s Anantnag and north Kashmir’s Bandipora districts from September 21 to October 3 in which 3,000 candidates appeared, the last phase of the CEE was held at Anantnag in south Kashmir today in which 412 candidates from different parts of Kashmir and Ladakh appeared.”The Army said the youths had proved that they wanted to serve the nation. The Army had assisted the aspirants to prepare for the CEE by conducting their pre-recruitment training across many parts of Kashmir.

It is alleged that payoffs were routed through Austria and Switzerland

New Delhi, October 21

The CBI has registered an FIR against a UK-based arms dealer for allegedly taking kickbacks worth over USD 5.7 million from Brazilian company Embraer in the 2008 three-aircraft deal.CBI sources said a case had been registered against a UK-based NRI whose name had also figured in another defence deal probed by the agency.They said the kickbacks were allegedly paid in 2009 through subsidiaries of Embraer via a Singapore-based company owned by the middleman.

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It is alleged that payoffs were routed through Austria and Switzerland.They said the agency, which had registered a preliminary inquiry in September, had converted it into a regular FIR as enough prima facie material had been found by it to proceed in the case.The deal for three aircraft, which were to be used by Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) for air-borne radar systems, was inked in 2008 with Embraer. A Brazilian newspaper had alleged that that the company had taken the services of middlemen to clinch deals in Saudi Arabia and India.According to defence procurement rules of India, middlemen are strictly barred in such deals.Leading Brazilian newspaper ‘Folha de Sao Paulo’ had reported that the company allegedly paid commissions to a UK-based defence agent to finalise the deal with India.The DRDO had purchased three aircraft from the company in 2008 and customised them for serving air-borne radar system known as airborne early-warning and control systems or AWACS for the Indian Air Force.The company has been under investigation by the US Justice Department since 2010 when a contract with the Dominican Republic raised the Americans’ suspicions, the report said.Since then, the investigation has widened to examine business dealings with eight more countries.After the PE was registered, Embraer had issued a statement saying, “Since 2011, Embraer has publicly reported that it has been conducting an extensive internal investigation and cooperating with the authorities on investigations regarding alleged violations of the FCPA.“The company voluntarily expanded the scope of the investigation, systematically reporting the progress of the case to the market.”“The company is not party of the legal proceedings in Brazil. Therefore, it does not have access to the information contained therein,” it had said. PTI

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been unsparing in his efforts to imbed in the country’s consciousness political ownership of the army’s action to avenge the Uri strikes. As part of that drive, the government and the BJP have shouted down any suggestions to the contrary despite occasional spanners like the Foreign Secretary’s reported admission to a Parliamentary Committee of such strikes having been carried out before.  A clarification skirted the Foreign Secretary’s main assertion and emphasises on India’s first-ever admission of such an operation. No government can pass up the opportunity to capitalise on a military operation on its watch. But the Modi government has moved on two fronts.Political appropriation of the strike is a work-in-progress but it is time to examine the government’s channeling of vast amounts of energy and resources to internationally isolate Pakistan. It didn’t require a Chinese report to mention what has been obvious. Instead of inviting SAARC to the BRICS summit, India opted for BIMSTEC that doesn’t have Pakistan.  But Modi may have queered the pitch by giving an Israel-like spin to the Indian army attack. Israel’s ways and methods of security management have always held the political Hindutva devotees in thrall. But large sections of the world see Israeli tactics as an impermanent solution that it is fated to repeat over and over again.Surely the Prime Minister’s intention was not to equate the Indian armed forces with the trigger-happy Israeli army. Israel’s military actions have created a permanent sore the world over and motivate generations of Palestinians to settle scores with a much superior enemy. It has also provided the fuel for faith-based mobilisation that we today know as political terrorism. Bangladesh, despite its overt political reliance on India, may have started feeling queasy over the Israel comparison.  As the BRICS joint declaration showed, in an era of ultra-violence, the world doesn’t really pay heed to border skirmishes.  The domestic dividend of the surgical strikes will be known in the coming assembly elections. But intemperate statements have already started diminishing the efficacy of the efforts to isolate Pakistan.

Pradesh Congress Committee president Capt Amarinder Singh joins party workers in cleaning the statue of Subedar Nand Singh at Fauji Chowk in Bathinda on Wednesday. PTI

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, October 19

Punjab Congress chief Capt Amarinder, whose book “Lest We Forget” has a detained mention of Subedar Nand Singh, lambasted the Badal government for “failing” to maintain his statue here.He along with party workers and leaders took upon himself the task of cleaning the statue of Victoria Cross and Maha Vir Chakra decorated Subedar Nand Singh of the 1st Sikh Regiment.He expressed anguish over the pitiable condition of the statue installed at Fauji (Shaheed) Chowk. He said there was no point in setting up memorials and installing statues if the government could not ensure their proper maintenance. He urged the Indian Army to take over the upkeep of such properties to prevent their degradation. “Our martyrs deserve no less,” he said.Himself hailing from the 1st Sikh Regiment, Amarinder described the condition of the statue as “yet another glaring instance of how little the Badals care for martyrs and their memorials.”Amarinder today met farmers at Gidderbaha, Muktsar, Bathinda and Faridkot on the third and last day of the Kisan Rath Yatra. Meanwhile, the PPCC chief claimed that there was no plan yet to enter into an alliance with the CPI.‘Will resign as MP after poll’Gidderbaha: PCC chief Capt Amarinder Singh today made it clear that he would not resign as MP for contesting the state assembly elections. “I will resign only after the results of the elections. This is the convention and I had even contested the Lok Sabha elections from Amritsar while being the MLA Patiala,” he said.

Former Northern Army commander Lt Gen HS Panag (retd) named his farmhouse near Fatehgarh Sahib, ‘Teetar Lodge’, due to fond memories of partridge shooting. That sport is outlawed but the analogy of a ‘’partridge hunt’ persists and is used in discourses on contemporary military matters. I queried Lt Gen S Ata Hasnain (retd), the authoritative commentator and former 15 Corps Commander, after he embellished his latest essay in the ‘Swarajya’ magazine with this intriguing analogy. The essay’s thrust is to decipher the Pakistan Army’s stratagem of launching terrorist attacks in quick succession at Baramulla/Langate/ Pampore and invites comparison to fidayeen attacks launched after the Kargil War by a humiliated Pakistan Army. But first, a tidbit on Lt Gen Hasnain’s family history of traditional shikar.

‘’My hunting days started in 1957 at Jammu in the company of my father who was the Brigade Major of the Damana Brigade under Brig Harbaksh Singh (the Western Army Commander during the 1965 War). My father had a BSA .12 bore shotgun and would take me and my brother hunting for ‘Tilyer’ (Common starling). We did family shoots every winter as one grew up in our home town of Allahabad and sometimes in areas around Meerut. We used to do beating in sugarcane and partridges flew at lightning speed. The beat was with a rope which was dragged by two men holding both ends and passing it over the sugarcane. The number of partridges flying out was very high but not to our ability to down them in flight mode. Difficult shooting indeed!’’ Lt Gen Hasnain told this writer.

Decades later, posted as Colonel (GS) at the Victor Force HQs, Awantipur, Lt Gen Hasnain tasted rich success with ‘’partridges’’ of another kind: those that could also peck pretty hard! His definition of the other hunt: ‘’The analogy of partridge hunt in the Army usually applies to the ease of multiple contacts because in such operations if you get a contact once in a month and that, too, on your own terms it is a big advantage. Units (battalions) go without contacts with terrorists for months. It is also used when an environment is created for multiple contacts and success at a relatively better rate.’’

Such favourable conditions arose after Kargil. ‘’The term partridge hunt was related to the situation of winter 1999-2000. Our one full division was employed (prewinter) for extensive operations in the upper reaches, rural and jungle terrain and we destroyed many hideouts and captured lots of rations and logistics material stocked by terrorists. This forced them to spend winter in the villages of South Kashmir. When we got wind of the situation, we did not await intelligence as there were so many terrorists all over. We started search and destroy operations by beating through villages with some intelligence sources. It is not as if terrorists came flying out like partridges but we started to pick up more intelligence and firefights commenced almost daily. There was a time when as the Colonel (GS), I was handling seven firefights in our area of responsibility. We killed a very large number through DecemberJanuary 1999,’’ he recounted.

Security men look towards the building where militants remained holed up for the second day of the gunfight in Pampore on Tuesday. Tribune Photo: Amin War

Azhar Qadri

Tribune News Service

Sempora, October 11

After intervals of absolute silence, loud thuds echoed through Sempora locality outside Srinagar city on Tuesday as the security forces continued to bombard the seven-storeyed building of Entrepreneurship Development Institute, turned into a secure bunker by a fidayeen squad.Few blasts were so powerful that shock waves could be felt even at a distance of 500 metres from ground zero. The offensive to kill the militants, which entered the second day today, was fierce but slow paced as the security forces ruled out the effective but risky “room-to-room intervention”.Here at the entrance of Sempora, where the limits of Srinagar city end and the highway enters Pampore town, the security forces were attempting to end the battle with a fierce fury of firepower, without suffering any casualty. An Army officer said the priority was to avoid casualty to the security forces. “Time is no consideration,” the officer told The Tribune.As the second day came to a close, the exact number of militants was not known even though there was confirmation about the killing of one militant. Since Monday morning, when the fidayeen squad took position inside the building, the security forces have fired several hundred 84-mm rockets, often with randomness as the exact location of militants remained unknown.The attack began at dawn on Monday when militants sneaked into the EDI building from its rear side bordering the Jhelum river. The police officials said the militants blocked the staircase with chairs and tables, and then drew the attention by lighting a fire.The militants appear to have carefully selected the multi-storey building as its concrete structure, which has so far remained resistant to a fierce barrage of rocket fire.It is for a second time this year that the EDI complex has become the site of a gun battle between militants and the security forces. In February, militants ambushed a convoy of the CRPF on the highway and later positioned themselves inside the EDI complex for three days. Two CRPF personnel, three Army commandos, including two captains, a civilian and three militants were killed in the February attack.The latest attack has come at a time when the region is in the midst of the unrest sparked by the killing of militant commander Burhan Wani in July, and amid heightened tension after the Army’s surgical strike targeted militants across the Line of Control last month.In the afternoon of the second day, a police official near the encounter site said the militants had not fired any shot since 11 am yesterday, which has made it difficult to assess their precise location. The building was being bombarded, the official said, to make it “dead sure” that militants had been neutralised.The security forces pounded the sprawling building with rocket fire and improvised explosive devices (IED) throughout the second day. “There are reports that at least two militants have been seen moving down the staircase,” the police official said.“It is difficult for the militants to have survived 100 kg of IED blast detonated last night, but we have to be dead sure that they are dead. Otherwise there is no use of firing so much ammunition,” the official said.

Long wait amid fury of rocket fire

• As the second day came to a close, the exact number of militants was not known even though there was confirmation about the killing of one militant. Since Monday morning, when the fidayeen squad took position inside the building, the security forces have fired several hundred 84-mm rockets, often with randomness as the exact location of militants remained unknown.

Punjab Congress chief Capt Amarinder Singh during the ex-servicemen’s rally in Jalandhar on Saturday. Tribune Photo: Malkiat Singh

Rachna Khaira

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, october 8

Training guns at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar over the Seventh Pay Commission anomalies, PPCC president Capt Amarinder Singh today said the Modi government should remove them to show its true solidarity to the armed forces.He was in the city to attend a meeting with ex-servicemen of Doaba, organised by Shahkot constituency ticket probable Capt Harminder Singh. “When the nation is praising the armed forces for the surgical strikes, what is stopping Modi from removing the anomalies highlighted by the ex-servicemen?” asked Capt.Welcoming Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal’s proposal to raise five armed battalions to be deployed as the second line of defence along the international border in Punjab, Amarinder said he had also raised one such battalion of ex-servicemen in 2004 during his tenure as Chief Minister.On the third list of AAP candidates, the PPCC chief said he only knew two persons — Sukhpal Khaira and Kanwar Sandhu. “We will defeat Sandhu by a huge margin,” he added.Show-cause notice over Nakodar rowCongress leader Nimisha Mehta has been served a show-cause notice for alleged indiscipline during the Punjab Congress Express yatra in Nakodar recently. Party leaders, including former minister Amarjit Singh Samra and ex-MLA Gurbinder Singh Atwal, have already been issued show-cause notices over the incident. “The party has adopted a zero tolerance policy on indiscipline,” said Amarinder.

After repeated unsuccessful attempts to take on India in conventional conflicts, Pakistan shifted to waging a ‘proxy war’. The mainstay of its doctrine has been to employ irregulars, non-state actors (NSAs) to bleed India in a ‘low intensity war’. Pakistan mastered this art in Afghanistan where it supported the Mujahedeen to defeat the Soviets at the behest of the US. 

Proxy War

Since 1989, Pakistan has been actively involved in fuelling militancy in Kashmir. Ironically, Indian retaliation to terrorist actions has been incidence-specific, and has lacked a holistic approach. September 29, 2016, marked the first time when Indian military response became a part of a well thought-out national strategy in the form of surgical strikes across the LoC.Surgical strikes are well-planned, bold military actions against specific target(s), executed with precision, by specialised forces, to inflict maximum destruction, with minimal collateral damage. Such tactical actions have strategic ramifications; may be executed from ground, air or sea. These military responses require careful selection of objectives aligned with overall strategy, accurate real-time intelligence, seamless coordination amongst various agencies and fine timing. Surprise is most crucial element, a vital prerequisite for success.The destruction of Iraqi Osirak reactor by Israeli air raid in 1981, employment of Tomahawk cruise missiles in the Gulf wars, the use of armed drones and elimination of Osama Bin Laden in 2011 by the US Navy Seals in Abbottabad are classic examples of surgical strikes.The recent operations undertaken by the Army should be viewed as the military component of calibrated national response; which includes politico-diplomatic- economic dimensions. Some salient aspects with regards above surgical strike are:

• The selected targets were known terrorist launch pads in POK. Located in the close proximity of the Pak Army posts astride the LoC, these act as staging areas where terrorists in small groups wait for a short period before crossing over. Launch pads are makeshift shelters and can relocate at a short notice. These were kept under close surveillance both from ground and air, to facilitate accurate target analysis.
• The planning for such operations is done simultaneously at both strategic and operational levels. While it is a political decision to assign the task, the prerogative is of the field commanders to work out the plans and execute the mission. This was the format followed by the government in the run-up to the recent operation.
• The troops selected for execution of the task were from the Special Forces who are attached to the Northern Theatre. They are highly trained, well-rehearsed and equipped with state-of the-art weapons, with capability to operate in all-weather conditions at a short notice. They operate in teams, with strength varying according to a task. For the above operations, a team was tasked for each target, with strength around of 30.
• Execution of the surgical strike by the ground forces has three phases; insertion of force, conduct of strike and exfiltration. In this case, the strike force was heli- lifted to the forward bases during the day. Insertion was on foot in the hours of darkness. All the objectives were engaged simultaneously, well past midnight. The exfiltration had to be speedy, during the hours of darkness to avoid immediate enemy reactions.
• Detailed coordination with units and formations deployed on the LoC is critical, especially during the insertion and exfiltration phases.

Surgical strike by Indian Army across LoC is a manifestation of well calibrated national response to Pakistan with a clear message; there is a penalty to be paid if Islamabad does not mend its ways. India should be well prepared to blunt Pak retaliation, which could be by way of upping the ante astride the LoC and scaling up the terrorist activities in the hinterland. It is also time to expose its hollow nuclear bogey. Delhi has taken the call, projecting itself as a responsible and resilient nation, capable of not only safeguarding its own security but a stabilizing factor in the region at large. Diverse options including calibrated military responses are the only way to make Pakistan misadventures unsustainable and cost-prohibitive.(The writer is former Assistant Chief Integrated Defence Staff, commanded Brigade in Valley; currently Professor Security & Strategy)

They say these camps have made their life hell

Muzaffarabad (PoK), October 6Terror training camps have been thriving in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) for years, according to people living across the area who have shown resentment to Pakistan’s intelligence agency ISI for having made their region a haven for anti-social elements.Residents of Muzaffarabad, Kotli, Chinari, Mirpur, Gilgit, Diamer and various parts of the Neelum Valley say their lives have been made hell by the terror training camps as the lawless men, who train here, plunder local villages and molest women.

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They say their region is being used by the ISI to further its proxy war against India.In various interactions, people and leaders in the region spoke about the daily extortion and harassment caused the terror groups which are located near the Line of Control (LoC).“If management doesn’t end Taliban’s terror camps and ‘no-go’ areas in Diamer, Gilgit, Baseen and others, we will take action,” a local leader of Gilgit was seen as saying.Residents confirm that the region is being used as nothing more than a staging post for Pakistan’s proxy war against India. They say they have no sympathy for the terror groups which are perhaps hated more in PoK than anywhere else.PoK leaders like Arif Shahid exposed the ISI terror nexus in the region and paid for it with their lives.Shahid has been found on record saying that the poor people of Pakistan are being exploited by the ISI to wage a jihad against India in which only the Pakistan Army is interested.Shahid fought tooth and nail against Pakistan’s oppression in PoK before he was shot outside his residence in Rawalpindi on May 14, 2013. He was 62. The investigation into Shahid’s murder is still inconclusive, and there is no closure to the cold-blooded murder, so far. The ISI is blamed for conspiring and executing Shahid’s murder.The people of PoK have been demanding the removal of terror camps for years but the state has always turned a deaf ear.Earlier, the PoK witnessed a series of protests by residents against “rigged polls” that saw Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s party, the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), coming to power. ANI

Says the issue should be left to the Army. ANI

New Delhi, October 5Amid demands for releasing proof of the surgical strikes by the Army across the LoC, Union Minister Kiren Rijiju on Wednesday said everyone should have faith in the government and allow the force to take its own call.“Have faith in the government and leave it to the Army,” he told reporters here when asked about the demand for release of proof of the surgical strikes by the Army.A political slugfest broke out on Tuesday over the surgical strikes on terror launch pads across the LoC with Mumbai Congress chief Sanjay Nirupam calling it “fake”, provoking stinging criticism from the BJP even as his own party said it “totally dissociates” itself from his remarks.

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The Congress leader demanded “some evidence” to prove that the surgical strikes did take place and accused the BJP of indulging in politics over the issue.With patriotic sentiments running high amid soaring tensions with Pakistan, Union Minister Uma Bharti said leaders who cast “doubt over the Army’s surgical strike should take Pakistani citizenship”. PTI