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| Taking No Chances: Untiring vigil in the region to thwart any terror strike | | | Early Times Report
JAMMU, Jan 21:
Till January 26, it is an untiring vigil for police and security forces in Jammu and Kashmir. To thwart any terror strike, troops are taking no chances.
While Pakistan is using all its possible resources and adopting new tactics to infiltrate militants to disrupt Republic Day celebrations here, troops are on round-the-clock
vigil to ensure incident-free function.
In the troubled Jammu and Kashmir, Republic Day has remained a matter of serious security concern since 1995 when serial blasts had rocked the M A Stadium -- the main venue for celebrations in the winter capital.
Twenty highly powerful rockets, all facing the M A Stadium, were found tied on trees in the nearby Tawi river bed a week or so before Republic Day few years back.
In the first 20 days of the first month of 2010, the Pak-based militants have made more than 16 forced infiltration bids on the International Border (IB) and the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu region.
To foil any intrusion bid on the eve of Republic Day, security forces are carrying out round-the-clock vigil on the borders. The hectic daily drill of scaring off infiltrators from the borders and their regrouping again and again close to fencing is keeping troops on toes.
The sudden spurt in ceasefire violations on the IB and the LoC by Pakistan is undoubtedly aimed at facilitating infiltration by militants. To stop militant attacks, police have intensified patrol and frisking and checkpoints have been installed to ensure no
vehicle enters the capital city unchecked.
To facilitate infiltration, two new strategies have been put into practice by Pakistan in the past one month. One is to damage barbed-wire fencing and the other is to demine the
borders. To damage fencing, they are firing mortars and rockets, while to demine large stretches of border land, they are setting ablaze the forested areas, especially those on the
LoC.
The damaged fencing and demined borders would make infiltration easy. It shows that there has been no change in the Pak policy towards India, though it has launched a "crusade" against Talbian and some other terror outfits on its soil. Though the unstable domestic scenario in Pakistan has affected significantly its capabilities to sustain terrorism in Kashmir, it has not yet led to any change in the establishment's intent or the infrastructure that supports and orchestrates terrorist violence on the Indian soil.
Islamabad's another strategy is its attempt to nurture a cohesive political voice in its favour.
To this end, efforts are directed towards uniting various pro-Pakistan groups, including the two factions of the main secessionist formation, the APHC. The objective appears to be to gradually transform the predominant terrorist movement into a more wide-based movement of political extremism, backed by calibrated terrorist operations, to secure a stronger position at the negotiating table and achieve what has not been possible on the ground through terrorism alone.
The multiplicity of crises in Pakistan has diluted Islamabad's capacities to sustain past levels of terrorism in J&K. Under the prevailing circumstances, damaging fencing with
mortars and demining Indian border areas with the help of fire seem to be the easily available options for the hitherto "disturbed" Pakistan.
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