Author: M.L. Kak
Publication: The Tribune
India
Date: October 30, 2000
Pakistani troops have
begun preparations for thwarting India's plan to raise a barbed wire fence
on the 187-km-long international border, (IB) from Akhnoor to Kathua in
the Jammu sector.
Reports reaching here
from across the border said during his recent visit to the Sialkot sector
across Jammu, Pakistan's military ruler, Gen Pervez Musharraf, held a discussion
with senior functionaries of the army and the Rangers on India's plan to
fence the border.
According to these reports
General Musharraf is said to have asked the army and Rangers to take in
hand all possible measures for ensuring that the BSF was not able to start
the fencing project. He has asked his troops to stop fencing at any
cost. "Come what may the fencing project has to be thwarted," he
said.
Though the Government
of India has yet to release funds to the BSF in Jammu, which have been
assigned the task of raising the eight-feet high fence, and the construction
material has yet to be dropped near the IB, Pakistan has, according to
the reports, started getting ready for launching an offensive, even if
it results in a prolonged Indo-Pakistan border conflict.
The reports said Islamabad
had raised objections to the fencing of the border on the plea that it
treated the border belt between Kathua and Akhnoor as a "working border."
But the real factor that has prompted Pakistan to attempt at blocking the
project was that Islamabad did not want to see the border fully sealed.
Since the agencies across
the LoC had concentrated on the IB for pushing into the state large groups
of militants and arms smugglers, these did not want to see infiltration
routes getting blocked by fencing.
Second, Islamabad had
a feeling that if India was allowed to raise the fence, it would be construed
as Pakistan's acceptance of the IB as "permanent border" between the two
sides.
Work on the project was
suspended in 1995 after the Pakistani troops pounded the border belts.
Since then India has tried to adopt a go-slow strategy in order to avoid
an armed conflict between the two sides.
The Union Minister cleared
the project again after reports from field intelligence agencies had favoured
fencing the IB which would arrest the rate of infiltration and facilitate
shifting more than three battalions of the BSF from the IB for internal
security. The union Home Ministry and the Ministry of Defence decided
that the fencing would be undertaken by the BSF under the overall security
cover of Indian troops.
Under the revised plan,
50 km of the 187-km-long border had to be fenced by the end of September
2000. However, the work could not be started because of non-availability
of funds. In addition, the Government of India wanted time for making
elaborate security preparations for countering any Pakistani attack once
the work on the fencing project was resumed.
A report said that Pakistan
had deployed additional troops across Samba, R.S. Pora, Kathua and
Akhnoor for any eventuality. Various types of barriers, including
clay and tin walls, had been raised by the Pakistani Rangers to use these
as a shield against any Indian retaliation.
The report said under
the instructions of General Pervez, highly sophisticated weapons, including
long-range guns, had been moved close to the border villages across Akhnoor,
Samba, Kathua and R.S. Pora.
However, Indian Defence
Ministry sources said "All necessary security arrangements have been finalised
for facilitating the BSF to complete the fence. To a question, the
sources said Pakistan would have to bear responsibility if any hurdle created
by it in "our fencing project" resulted in a major armed conflict between
the two sides. They said "we are raising the fence on a stretch of
land that belongs to India. As such Pakistan should have no objections."
