Speaking at the sidelines of a Defence Ministry function on Wednesday, the Army Chief said there is “always some support” for militants from Pakistan. “We have reports to suggest some elements of the Pakistan Army, including the Inter-Services Intelligence, are helping push the militants across,” Gen Singh said.

Defence Minister A K Antony confirmed that there had been a major spurt in infiltration bids in April as compared to last year and that the army was closely monitoring the issue. “There was a hike in infiltration attempts in April. We will monitor the figures for the months of May, June and July,” he said. The Minister added that the ceasefire agreement along the Indo-Pak border was still holding on.

The Army’s latest intelligence assessment puts the number of infiltrations in April at 790—a three-fold increase from 2006 when only 27 terrorists managed to cross over in April. The sudden spurt comes as a surprise as things had been extraordinarily peaceful during the first three months of the year with just 17 terrorists managing to infiltrate into the country. The latest assessment shows that infiltration is on a three-year high with 96 terrorists crossing over till April this year against 75 in 2006 and 37 in 2005.

The Defence Minister had also come down heavily on Pakistan during the recent Asian Security Summit in Singapore by saying that “more imaginative approaches” were required to resolve the Kashmir imbroglio. He had called upon Pakistan to stop supporting cross-border terrorism and deliver on its commitment of not supporting terrorism from ‘territory under its control’.