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Safeguarding India's soft underbelly

In view of the on-going conflict in Kargil and the Inter Services Intelligence's persistent attempts to send infiltrators across the relatively less-guarded border in Gujarat, the Border Security Force has started fencing the international border.

The BSF has taken up this task on a war footing.

It is also creating floating border observation posts or flotillas in the Sir Creek area of the border that lies between the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Kutch.

The fencing will cover 1000 kilometres in Rajastan and 512 kilometres in Gujarat.

Two districts of Gujarat, Kutch and Banaskantha, share a 322 kilometre and a 190 kilometre long land border, respectively, with Pakistan.

About 950 kilometres of coastline in close proximity with Pakistan, including a 100 kilometre long creek zone, will see increased patrolling.

So far, Pakistani infiltration in Gujarat has been on a small scale. The topography and the hostile climate of the inhospitable Rann of Kutch acted as natural barriers.

However, with increased activity of the Indian Army in the northern states bordering Pakistan, the latter was now concentrating on Gujarat, highly-placed sources said.

The June two intrusion of seven Pakistanis through the Kori Creek area, off Koteshwar, was a pointer to this attempt. Of the seven, at least two are believed to be ISI agents.

They hired three labourers and a boatmen to enter the Kutch coast with 24 kilograms of RDX, about 65 foreign-made pistols and revolvers, nearly one thousand cartridges and remote-controlled detonators.

One of the ISI agents whose identity card was found, was later killed in an encounter.

In Kutch Pakistan Television had also started making a big impact, mainly due to problems in the telecast of Doordarshan programmes.

This prompted the government's recent ban on Pak-TV programmes through cable operators all over the state.

At the initiative taken by the state's Minister for Home, Border Security and Information Haren Pandya, Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Pramod Mahajan rushed a technical team to the region yesterday.

The team is expected to solve the technical problems within a fortnight thus enhancing Doordarshan's reach in the border areas.

Intelligence sources pointed out that at least three Islamic fundamentalist organisations -- Lashkar-e-Toiba, Ahl-e-Hadis and Tablighi Jamat -- were active in Kutch.

Of late, the Jamat-e-Islami's student wing has also become active in this thinly-populated district.

In July 1998, one kilogram of RDX was seized from Kala Dungar (black hillock) near Banni from where the nearest Pakistani village is only about 50 kilometres.

The Pakistani agents had crossed into Kutch district, hid the explosives on the hillock, and then managed to go unnoticed all the way to Naxalite-infested Andhra Pradesh where the Hyderabad police arrested one of them.

Following interrogation, the agent disclosed the whereabouts of the RDX he had hidden in Gujarat.

Kutch is also reported to be emerging as an important conduit for smuggling of narcotic drugs in the new ''golden triangle'' comprising Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

More than 80 smugglers have been arrested in an equal number of cases since 1993 and drugs worth millions of rupees have been seized from them, sources revealed.

It is in view of these happenings that the Gujarat government, last year, set up a new department of border security, the first state to do so in India, to co-ordinate the state's efforts with the central agencies and forces.

In view of the Kargil situation, the state government recently strengthened the civil defence system as part of precautionary measures. Citizens of Jamnagar yesterday heard sirens, a rehearsal to prepare them for any eventuality.

The Indian Air Force base on the outskirts of Jamnagar had been bombarded both in the 1965 and 1971 wars.

Besides, the state government has also revived the age-old pugee system in which local elders and experienced people could locate any strange movement -- including that of cattle and camels -- of people by studying their footprints on the sands of the Rann of Kutch.

In fact, the movement of the June 2 Pakistani intruders was discovered by constable Govind Sinh, himself a pugee, who tracked them for 30 kilometres which led him to a boatman, whose interrogation in turn led to the arrest of the entire gang.

The nearest Pakistani settlement from Kutch is located at a distance of only eight kilometres.

The district, which accounts for nearly one-third of the area of Gujarat, has a population density of only 20 persons per square km.

The nomadic cattle-breeders are also used by infiltrators who sort to blend with them as a means of penetrating deeper into Indian territory.

UNI

The Kargil Crisis

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