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| A diferent enemy atop J&K mountain | | Indian Army launches war to ward off menace | | BL KAK
NEW DELHI, FEB 13 The menace on the Siachen glacier in Jammu and Kashmir State has set 4,000 to 5,000 Indian Army troops in motion. Each one of them is under orders not to use any arms and ammuniton while dealing with a different enemy on the world's highest battleground in the trans-Himalayan region.
The different enemy has been offically identifed as tonnes of rubbish scatered over the ice. And the Indian Army's war is officially described as "Operation Clean Siachen, Green Siachen". The Army's war is targeting the mounds of food packaging, human waste, empty artillery shells and even discarded parachutes that have built up since the 1980s when the Indian troops took up strategic positions high in the Himalayas.
It is offical, again: 4,000 to 5,000 Indian troops based in Siachen are collecting biodegradable and non-biodegradable material. Indian Air Force (IAF) planes will be pressed into service to airlift injurious and unwanted stuff out of the Siachen sector.
Mountaineers who have managed to climb in the region, where temperatures drop to minus 70 degrees Celsius, say that they have seen piles of rubbish on the glacier. Mohammed Ashraf of the Indian Mountaineering Foundation, has been quoted as saying: "There is a lot of garbage there -- food packets, empty shells, human excrement, plastic sheets, tins, jerry cans and even parachutes, which the army used for air dropping supplies".
The Siachen glacier reaches an altitude of 18,000 feet, making it one of the highest rubbish dumps in the world. The Siachen glacier continues to be the bone of contention between India and Pakistan. Hundreds of soldiers from both India and Pakistan have died on Siachen over the last two decades -- more due to altitude sickness, freezing temperatures and avalanches than enemy fire.
The Siachen glacier, nearly 80-km long, was once an icy wasteland so desolate the two countries had not even bothered to mark their frontier there. But in 1984 India grew worried over what it said was new Pakistani interest in the area and occupied the glacier. It has since held the heights, with Pakistani troops stationed at lower altitudes.
Talks between the two nuclear-armed rivals over the withdrawal of troops remain deadlocked. Islamabad continues to mount pressure on New Delhi for the troop withdrawal from the 18,000-foot-high glacier. The power corridors in New Delhi appear keen this time to keep in view the Indian Army's standpoint while negotiating a setlement of the dispute with Pakistan.
The Army would like the government of India to adopt a careful and "highly cautious" line in view of the unpredictable behaviour of the Pakistani troops.
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