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Army to strengthen winter positions

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI OCT. 27. The deployment of more troops in Jammu and Kashmir will enable the Army to strengthen its positions in the snow-bound areas and place more reactive forces and mobile reserves along the routes vulnerable to infiltration, according to the Chief of the Army Staff, N.C. Vij.

The bi-annual meeting of Army commanders which began today will approve the proposal.

Commanders from the Northern Command, responsible for security and counter-insurgency operations in the State, have been actively pushing the proposal following intelligence reports that militants are being provided winter training in some terrorist camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).

The Army has been manning all its positions since the Kargil War when the snow-bound posts vacated by it were occupied by the Pakistani army. This time, instead of placing troops only for surveillance, especially in the Kupwara-Gurez belt along the LoC, permanent bunkers to withstand the harsh winter conditions have been built. These will be occupied by 30 to 40 additional troops.

Besides, the Army maintains quick-reaction teams some distance from the ingress routes to respond to emergencies. This time, these mobile reserves will be pushed forward and earmarked for smaller areas unlike on previous occasions when they were kept in readiness to cater to an emergent situation on three to four routes.

Officers, however, feel that infiltrators rarely favour these routes during winter because of avalanches threat, slow progress in snow-bound conditions, migration of cattle-grazers and easy detection from footprints in the snow but it would be perilous to ignore intelligence reports on militants being trained to operate in snow-bound conditions. Gen. Vij said today that modern equipment used for anti-insurgency units and better surveillance capabilities had enabled his men to detect more cases of infiltration and react early to foil suicide attacks on their camps.

Today, senior officers devoted the meeting to reviewing the overall security situation in the country with presentations on various aspects.

The Chief of the Air Staff, S. Krishnaswamy, inaugurating the Indian Air Force Commanders' Conference today, said, "We have proved ourselves to be a professional and disciplined force not only at home but also at international meets." We have received overwhelming response to our awareness rallies throughout the country.'' He also spoke on the smooth induction of equipment and technologies into the IAF.

The Indian Navy Commanders' Conference will begin tomorrow.The Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and other senior Cabinet Ministers will address a combined commanders conference of all the three services on November 1.

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