No troop cuts in J&K as of now

NEW DELHI: The centre has ruled out any change in troop levels or their positions in Jammu and Kashmir, as part of its strategy to counter rising infiltration levels.

It has, however, directed security forces in Jammu & Kashmir to step up vigil along the LoC/international border and plug the gaps being exploited by jihadi outfits to push in as many fighting-fit cadres as possible while the passes are snow-free.

At a high-level security review chaired by home secretary Madhukar Gupta in Srinagar during his June 13-14 visit to J&K, intelligence agencies shared the assessment that the thrust of the jihadi outfits to infiltrate large number of cadres into J&K was essentially to ensure that there is no dearth of manpower whenever they have plans to strike.

Besides, given that the Pakistani establishment and ISI are currently preoccupied with handling the political crisis in Pakistan over sacking of former chief justice Iftikhar Choudhary, their hold on terrorist outfits like Lashker e Taiba or Jaish-e-Mohammed may have weakened.

This, the review meeting was told, may have encouraged LeT or JeM to become complacent and revert to their original infiltration routes running through J&K, rather than crossing over from alternate routes through Nepal and Bangladesh.
The ISI, it be recalled, has been pressuring jihadi outfits to switch from J&K border to alternate routes in a bid to deflect international scrutiny over its support to terror in J&K.

The security agencies, after examining the low violence levels in J&K despite the rising infiltration, decided that there was not enough reason to redeploy or reposition the troops. However, a tighter vigil by border forces was stressed upon to foil the jihadis’ attempts at finding gaps to sneak in their men into Indian territory.

As many as 82 infiltration attempts were recorded in April 2007, nearly double of the 43 cases in April 2006 and 44 in April 2005. The trend continued in May with slightly less than 70 infiltration cases being reported, again a significant jump from 43 recorded in the corresponding month of last year.