Army roping in locals in Jammu & Kashmir border areas for intelligence

JAMMU: Army is seeking to rope in locals for boosting intelligence in border areas of Jammu and Kashmir against the backdrop of a number of attacks carried out by terrorists after infiltrating from Pakistan.

This comes weeks after locals in Udhampur caught alive a Pakistani terrorist who was on the run after carrying out a strike, along with an associate, on a BSF bus.

To seek active involvement of the locals, a conference was held today with an aim of ensuring coordination between the military and civilians for facilitating timely exchange of information with respect to any suspicious movement in and around the villages along the border villages in Jammu region.

The conference held in Samba, bordering Pakistan, was attended by 47 ex-servicemen and sarpanches of several villages, a Defence Ministry spokesman said here.

"Such initiatives by the Army will go a long way in winning the hearts and minds of people of the area and further bonding between the Army and locals," he said.

The effort to rope in locals in getting intelligence inputs assumes significance as terrorists from Pakistan, after managing to sneak into India, have carried out a number of attacks, including at security assets.

The latest case was the attack in Udhampur, where two Pakistani terrorists targeted a BSF bus. Significantly, locals there caught one of the terrorists alive while another was shot dead by the BSF personnel.