India is preparing for all-out war against Pakistan over Kashmir, analysts said on Monday, as troops on both sides of the disputed border again pounded each other with artillery shells and militants launched more attacks on Indian army bases.
”They are preparing for war,” said political analyst Raja Mohan, a former member of the National Security Council, a think tank that advises government on military matters.
”These are steps towards war,” he added, referring to an
increased mobilisation announced by the government late on Sunday following a meeting between Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and his security advisers.
Speaking for the committee, Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh also announced that Indian troops will match Pakistani firepower in Kashmir.
”It is already happening,” Mohan said, referring to fierce artillery duels which have been fought in Kashmir between the two sides daily since Friday.
He said that, in fact, New Delhi had been ”building for war” since an attack by Islamic rebels on the Indian parliament in December.
An announcement on January 12 by Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf of a crackdown on religious militancy in Kashmir had suspended that build-up.
”India at the time said, ‘we will wait and see’,” Mohan said.
”But now it is clear that Musharraf has not made good his word so the build-up is being continued. They will go to war unless something happens in between.”
That ”something” would have to be a much firmer demonstration by Musharraf that he is determined to honour his commitment ”not to permit any terrorism in the name of divided Kashmir”.
Other defence and security analysts quoted in the Indian press on Monday concurred that the increased mobilisation — bringing all paramilitary forces in border areas under the control of the army — takes India a step closer to war.
”This meets a key requirement of war preparedness and this is a clear signal to Pakistan and the rest of the world that India means business,” defence analyst Brahma Chellaney told the Hindustan Times.
Former army chief V.P. Mallik, however, said that while the move was certainly for greater readiness, it didn’t necessarily mean India was indeed going to war.
But for the 12 000 or so villagers who have fled the skirmishes on the border to safer ground, war clouds have already darkened the horizon.
”We have been living with cross-border exchanges over the past many years now,” said Mohammad Nazir, from Kamalkote village, one of the worst hit in the northern part of Indian controlled Kashmir.
”But what we fear most is the outbreak of (real) war,” he added. The past week has seen a surge in attacks by militants in Indian administered Kashmir, starting with a massacre last Tuesday at Kaluchak military camp, near the southern winter capital of Jammu.
In that attack, three militants killed 32 people before they were themselves gunned down. Most of the dead were the wives and children of soldiers.
The slaughter triggered a sharp deterioration in relations between India and Pakistan and saw Islamabad’s high commissioner (ambassador) to New Delhi being given his marching orders on Saturday.
On Sunday, three soldiers and a paramilitary trooper were killed in an attack on an army camp in Chasana at Reasi, near the southern town of Udhampur.
The bloodletting continued on Monday, with police announcing that two Indian soldiers were killed in the early hours of the morning when armed militants attacked two security camps.
The first attack took place on the base of the 38 Rashtriya Rifles, the Indian army’s counter-insurgency force, at Manjakot, Rajouri, 171 kilometres from Jammu, around 2:00am (2030 GMT), police said.
They said three militants opened fire on the camp, killing one soldier and injuring two others. Other soldiers returned fire and fighting continued for an hour before the militants escaped in the darkness.
A member of India’s Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), meanwhile, was killed and two others injured in a similar attack in southern Doda district, a police representative said.
Security officials said they had intercepted radio messages asking rebels in Kashmir to escalate violence against the army in the state. ? Sapa-AFP