Pakistan setting up high-tech cameras, signal towers near LoC: Intelligence Reports

Pakistan has now started setting up high-tech cameras and signal towers along the Line of Control (LoC) with India in Jammu and Kashmir, revealed intelligence agencies on Sunday. According to the inputs gathered, 18 sign towers have been set by the Pakistani Army and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) - Pakistan's premier intelligence agency - across the LoC.

So what devious schemes are being hatched? According to intelligence agencies, terrorists are planning to carry out several IED blasts in the villages adjacent to the LoC in J&K before January 26. Pakistan is reportedly setting up the high-tech cameras and the signal towers to safeguard the terrorist launch pads in case India launches a counter-terror operation. Intel suggests that following the setting up of cameras and signal towers, Pakistani army officials along with PoK brigadier Asim Khan chaired a meeting with commanding officers in Kotli on January 8, where the details regarding the blasts were discussed.

Intelligence sources also told the Zee News that ten personnel of the Pakistan Army Special Service Group (SSG) (aka the 'Maroon Berets') have been tasked to carry out the work.

Earlier, on December 22, 2019, a similar meeting was called in Kotli where a strategy was devised for the Border Action Team (BAT).

The BAT teams are reportedly getting support from ISI and are being aided by terrorist outfits operating from its soil, the agencies had said earlier. The intelligence agencies had in December 2019 and at the beginning of this year had warned about a series of BAT attacks along the LoC targeting the Indian security forces. One such attack has already taken place and Army personnel on the LoC have now been warned about more such attacks.

The BAT squads comprise terrorists and Pakistan Army soldiers, particularly well-trained commandos of the SSG.

In their last report, the Indian intelligence agencies had warned that a group of ten SSG commandos along with terrorists were spotted in the Krishna Ghati (KG) sector. They were believed to be planning attacks on Indian border posts.

Pakistan's BAT team was believed to be involved in the suspected beheading of one of the two porters recently killed in cross-border shelling in Jammu’s Poonch district on January 10.

While the Army did not confirm a BAT role, Defence Ministry spokesperson Lt Colonel Devender Anand said that one of the porters had been found to be headless and that they were investigating whether there was Pakistani hand in it. A senior J&K police officer said the porter's head appeared to have been severed by a sharp-edged weapon.

The last such incident was reported back in September 2018, when a BSF jawan was killed and his body mutilated in Samba district, leading to the cancellation of Indo-Pak talks scheduled days later. In December 2017, bodies of four soldiers, including a Major killed in the Rajouri sector, were found to be mutilated by a BAT team that infiltrated 300-400 meters inside the LoC.

Similar incidents were reported in 2017, 2016 and 2013.

Meanwhile, there is more evidence of Pakistan's backed terror outfits planning some big action in the National Capital Region, triggering major security concerns.