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Intruders continue to stand their ground and fight

Amberish K Diwanji in New Delhi

No progress has been made on the proposal to withdraw the armed Pakistani intruders from the Kargil sector of Jammu & Kashmir, as declared in the joint statement of the United States and Pakistan.

The external affairs ministry, the army and the air force all stated that as far as the ground realities are concerned, the intruders continue to hold their positions and fight the Indian forces seeking to evict them.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharief is still to return to Islamabad, having broken his return from Washington in the United Kingdom.

External affairs ministry spokesman Raminder Singh Jassal, joint secretary, stressed that till the position on the ground changes, military operations will continue.

Another official of the ministry said they do not expect anything to happen for a week at least. "Sharief is still to return and the generals have said they will not take any decision until he returns. Even if he returns in a day or two, by the time the decision is formally taken, announced and implemented, it could be a week. Especially since the decision to withdraw has to be sold to the people of Pakistan," he said.

The irony is that by then, the Indian Army may have all but pushed the intruders back across the LoC. Pushing all the invaders out may take up to a month, primarily because the army is in no real hurry now.

"Any plan to withdraw has meaning only today because by now the army has anyway achieved its key objectives. And in a few days more, there will be no more intruders left to withdraw," said the official.

The ministry is not focussing on what will happen after Sharief orders his troops to withdraw. "Let him do it, then we will worry about the reactions," said the official.

With Drass almost cleared up after the capture of Tiger Hill, the focus now is on the Batalik sub-sector, the last area where the intruders still hold a significant chunk of territory. The army spokesman, Colonel Bikram Singh, pointed out that the intruders are still about 3 kilometres inside the Line of Control there. But once the latest operations undertaken by the army succeed, India will be hardly 1.5 km from the LoC, like in the Drass and Kargil sub-sectors.

But an army officer warned that it may still take a few weeks to clear out the last of the enemy, unless they leave on their own or are denied supplies from their support bases and thus forced to run. "Every inch of territory is being fought over. The intruders are giving away nothing," he said.

Chief of Army Staff General Ved Prakash Malik has made an instant award of unit citation to the 108 Medium Regiment, an artillery unit. This regiment provided accurate and devastating fire round the clock to help the infantry groups advance and capture enemy positions in Tololing, Point 5140, Tiger Hill, and Point 4875 in the Drass sub-sector.

EARLIER REPORT:
No sign of withdrawal of troops, says India

The Kargil Crisis

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