Mutual Recriminations

BORDER skirmishes with Pakistan are not uncommon. But the intensity of the recent clash along the Line of Control (LOC) came as a surprise to both the Defence and External Affairs Ministries. While Indian army commanders on the border talked of 70 Pakistani casualties, Pakistanis simply laughed off these claims. And that left New Delhi in a bit of a spot. It had to explain how the army got the fig-ure of 70—a difficult proposition in the face of repeated Pakistani denials.

Officials in the two ministries reeled off a host of reasons why Pakistan had sparked off the clash. First, that it was trying to push militants into Kashmir and so needed the cover of gunfire. Second, that it wanted to internationalise the Kashmir issue prior to September's UN General Assembly session in New York. Third, that it needed a crisis to seek a trilateral meeting between Prime Ministers I.K. Gujral, Nawaz Sharif and President Bill Clinton. Fourth, that the Pakistani army, and specifically the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), wanted to sabotage the third round of Indo-Pakistani talks also scheduled for September.

But clearly the Indian reaction hadn't been coordinated enough and it was easy for the Pakistanis to pick holes in it. Army commanders in Srinagar had played it up and Delhi ministry mandarins were somewhat astounded, if not a little dismayed, that a border row should erupt just before foreign secretary-level talks and the UN session. But more than the clash, it was the media barrage that followed the first reports that leaked from Srinagar which perplexed Indian officials.

While there was no doubt that a huge amount of artillery was used by both sides, the Indians still had to explain the huge Pakistani casualty list it claimed. The reaction from Pakistan would have been far more stronger if it had lost 70 soldiers and the clash wouldn't have died down within days. It would have led to a major diplomatic crisis and the proposed foreign secretary-level talks would surely have been cancelled. The media barrage died down as quickly as the clash.

바카라 웹사이트The army, of course, took the clash seriously. It is not often that the press is taken to the border immediately after바카라 웹사이트 such an exchange. But this time around, the defence authorities were very keen to set the record straight that Pakistan, and not the Indian army, was responsible for breaking the peace. A band of scribes was escorted to Lal Pull so that they could get a glimpse of the Upper Udham post—the site of one of the worst flareups in this round. "Just three days back, bringing reporters to this place would have been impossible. The area was well within the firing range of Pakistan from Upper Udham. It is only because my jawans succeeded in blasting the post that we can stand here and talk," Brig. Jasbeer Lidder, commanding officer of the Uri sector in north Kashmir, told the press party.

Like all 'normal' skirmishes along the LOC, it started off with an exchange of small arms fire. But the moment the Indian officer, Major Dipender Bucher, and Naik Shamsher Singh were killed in Pakistani shelling, the Indian army retaliated. Heavy artillery exchanges ensued on August 23. "Maj. Bucher was a valiant soldier and before being hit by a shell, he blasted one of the most strategic Pakistani pickets at Upper Udham peak besides the Air Defence machinegun deployed at the post. This weapon was positioned at 5,000 ft in a manner that was very dangerous for our movement from Lal Pull (red bridge) to Kaman Post, the last Indian picket, just 500 metres away from POK," says Brig. Lidder.

BUT whatever happened to the confidence-building measures (CBMs) put in place between the two countries,meant to avoid such clashes? One of which is a hotline between the director-general, military operations, of the two armies—they are supposed to talk every Tuesday. And thereby hangs a tale.

On August 26, they could not use the hotline because of a technical snag on the Indian side. The next day the Indian fault was repaired, but something went wrong with the Pakistani line this time, and they could not hold a conversation. In effect, they didn't speak to each other right through the fighting or after it. Sources say that the two DGMOs do not speak to each other every Tuesday—and that they talk only when necessary and even that is decided in advance.

There is a hotline between an Indian and Pakistani commander in the Baramulla sector in Kashmir, which is non-functional at present. There is another hotline, between the two prime ministers, which,of course, won't be used when there are "hot exchanges" taking place between the two armies, said a security analyst.

Rarely in the last eight years, since the eruption of militancy in Kashmir, has the exchange of fire been so heavy. And it extended virtually along the entire LOC in Jammu and Kashmir. Indian troops claim the firing was an act of "desperation on the part of the Pakistan army and the ISI after having failed to do anything during the golden jubilee celebrations of India's independence." Army intelligence suggested that the clash could be a reaction to Pakistani domestic opinion. Recently, two retired Pakistani services chiefs, Asghar Khan and Noor Khan, advocating that the Kashmir issue should be watered down, made noises against too much Pakistani involvement in Kashmir. Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, too, seemed to have rubbed the Pakistani establishment the wrong way by supporting the idea of an independent Kashmir some time ago.

SENIOR army officers on the border reiterate that Pakistan is responsible for the latest flareup. Says Brig. Lidder: "It (firing) was totally unprovoked and seemed to be the result of sheer desperation". According to him, Pakistan fired the first shot on August 15 itself, which, he claims, was "ignored by us". But he stresses that Indian troops were forced to take notice when the firing from across the border continued intermittently for the next six days, and particularly after Pakistani shells hit the civilian population instead of Indian posts. Villages close to the LOC—Jabla, Gharkote, Salamabad, Adoosa and Chakra—bore the brunt of the persistent gunfire. Four civilians were killed in Jabla after their houses were hit by mortar shells.

Recalls Gul Jan, an elderly resident of Jabla village: "The firing is a routine affair for us, but this time it was more intense. I lost my two sons early this year in firing from across the border. This time my house has been damaged". Mutawali Khan Abasi, the village head of Chakra, also confirmed that the Pakistan assault was heavy. "I, along with my family, was con-fined to the ground floor room for three days as indiscriminate shelling continued from across the border. Many of our cattle were killed in it".

Over 50 villagers, including women, were huddled at the Uri army camp when the band of reporters reached the border town on August 25. The villagers had been deliberately brought there to narrate their stories. Army officers denied reports that the affected villages had been evacuated and insisted that the villagers had been ferried to the camp to "tell the world that Pakistan had started the offensive and made the civilian population its target".

Even as the journalists returned to Lal Pull, to be briefed again by Brig. Lidder, heavy shelling started afresh. Indian troops returned the fire from a neighbouring picket—within just 15 minutes, nine shells were fired from 135-mm guns amid shouts of "Bharat mata ki jai". Earlier, when Lidder was briefing the newsmen at Uri and other places while on the way to Lal Pull, one could hear shelling from both sides. At a picket before Lal Pull, the press party was told that 70 mortars were fired in just three hours in reply to shelling from across the border.

The Uri sector is virtually under the direct gaze of Pakistani troops, their soldiers strategically deployed on the peaks on three sides. "The return of Haji Peer pass in the 1965 war to Pakistan was definitely an unwise decision. We had captured this strategic peak and if we had held on to it, we would have held the advantage. By giving it back to Pakistan, we are the losers. Today, Pakistan troops, sitting on high peaks, are watching all our movements," rues a senior officer.

But he was quick to add that this did not mean that Indian troops are weak in any respect. "Our morale is very high and our troops can give a befitting reply to any offensive made by the enemy," he reiterates. Ditto the message emanating from across the border.