Pakistan builds muscles during truce

NEW DELHI: Islamabad used the mutually-agreed ceasefire between India and Pakistan, as part of confidence building measures, to arm itself, says an internal security review carried out by the home ministry and confirmed by a Parliamentary Standing Committee.

Intriguingly, while India was concentrating on completing the border fencing to check infiltration from across the border, Pakistani forces used the ceasefire as an alibi to augment its defence related infrastructure by undertaking “large scale construction” work for raising defence infrastructure. In one particular stretch of the border with Pakistan in Punjab, and Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan constructed 97 Observation Towers and 162 barracks to station its troops near the border. “India should immediately upgrade its border surveillance and military preparedness,” the committee strongly recommended.

Even a bund the Indian forces built to provide security to those engaged in fencing work was utilised by Pakistani forces as a cover to undertake construction work and to facilitate entry of trained militants into Kashmir, the report said.

Notwithstanding the hype generated by the government’s border fencing project, the committee, to its chagrin, found the border floodlight equipment obsolete; it had “outlived” its life and the cables were damaged.

“The floodlight equipments have outlived their life and cables have also become old and worn out. It is necessary to replace the existing border floodlight system without any delay,” the panel further said.

It further observed that due to various steps taken by the government, the infiltration of Pakistan-trained militants had drastically come down. But it was still continuing.

Similarly, various Pak-backed terrorists groups such as Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, JeM, Al-Badr and Hizbul Mujahideen continue to target soft targets in Jammu and Kashmir and elsewhere.

On the Maoist violence front, the affected states were found wanting in seizing the opportunity provided by the Centre to upgrade their police force. None of the seven Maoist-hit states have raised the full quota of India Reserve Battalions sanctioned to them. Worst affected Jharkhand has raised only four of the sanctioned six battalions while Chhattisgarh  has raised only one out of the three sanctioned battalions. Orissa, which has recently witnessed a spurt in Maoist violence, has raised only one IR battalion against the sanctioned strength of five.
a_anil@dnaindia.net