Infiltration attempts remain high, no reduction in troops

The Indian Army has no immediate plans to reduce or restructure its troop deployment in Kashmir despite the apparent thaw between the political leadership of India and Pakistan.

Top Army sources in Northern Command, which has jurisdiction over Jammu and Kashmir, told this correspondent that despite the decrease in violence levels in the Kashmir valley, there is no room for complacency since the attempts to push in infiltrators from across the Line of control that divides India and Pakistan in parts of Kashmir have not reduced at all.

Intelligence assessment on Kashmir indicates that all 40-odd camps in Pak-Occupied Kashmir, close to the LoC, are still teeming with over 400 well-trained terrorists of various tanzeems. "Over the past six months the attempts to infiltrate have been at the level witnessed last year (2009-10). That we have not allowed too many of them to cross over successfully does not mean the efforts to push them into Kashmir valley or in Jammu area have decreased," a senior Army officer said.

The army has a three-tier anti-infiltration grid in place in J&K for the past several years. According to sources, the grid is dynamic, designed to adapt to constantly changing situation on ground. Senior Army officers point out that no matter what the progress in India-Pakistan foreign secretary or foreign minister level talks, the security grid cannot be relaxed or scaled down since those camps and their organisers in PoK continue to remain active.

In fact, the Army views the ceasefire violations along the International Boundary (where the Border Security Force is deployed) more seriously since most of these violations in the form of small arms and mortar fire is meant as cover fire for infiltrating militants. In the first 40 days of 2011, there have been at least three ceasefire violations along the IB in the Jammu sector.

India and Pakistan had agreed to a ceasefire all along the Loc and the IB in November 2003. Largely the truce has held so far but analysts in the Indian army's Northern Command have not been able to put a finger on the exact causes for the occasional spurt in ceasefire violations.

The other contentious issue in JK is the constant demand to reduce the presence of paramilitary forces. Union Home secretary GK Pillai had told a seminar in New Delhi that the ministry of home affairs would like to over time draw down at least 25 per cent of the existing paramilitary strength in J&K.

Intelligence and security officials, however, say the final word on this issue has to come from the state's Unified Headquarters chaired by Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and comprising the Northern Army commander, the state's director general of police and heads of other agencies.

"If the UHQ feels paramilitary presence needs to be reduced from certain areas in the state," there is no one who will object to that decision, a senior MHA official told rediff.com.

Despite the clamour for less militarised J&K, however, the UHQ will take its own time in deciding to reduce or even redeploy security personnel.