Lance Naik Jagsir Singh and Sepoy Mohammed Arif were released by the Pakistan Army to Indian authorities on August 9, 2004, after languishing in Pakistani jails since September 1999. The two sappers were part of a task force carrying out demining operations in the Mushkoh sector west of Kargil and had strayed across the LoC. Their having been taken as PoWs by Pakistan was revealed only on May 19, 2003 — yet two years prior to that, at the Agra summit in July 2001, General Pervez Musharraf was asked when Pakistan would return the 52 PoWs who, India maintains, have been in Pakistani jails from 1965 till Kargil.

Musharraf’s response was categorical: “There were no Indian PoWs in Pakistan”. He added that he had checked this out before the summit. Usually armies do not lie to their Chiefs on serious matters, so one cannot but help draw the conclusion that he was fully aware of the two recent POWs and was telling a lie with the characteristic conviction and persuasion that have become his hallmark.

The above illustration sets the platform on which some of his other patently false statements in his autobiography figure, as far as the war in Kargil is concerned.

Let’s start with his premise that Indian Army was getting frustrated with the insurgency in Kashmir and was planning to attack in the Shaqma Sector, west of Kargil, in 1999. In 1998 the militancy in Kashmir had been brought to the lowest level since 1994. Both parliamentary and assembly elections had been successfully held with fair to heavy turnout. The Amarnath Yatra had been incident-free. There had been no accretion to troop strength anywhere in Jammu and Kashmir and not even a company was inducted across the Zoji La Pass, the gateway to Ladakh. There was no readjustment of troops in the Ladakh Sector, of which Kargil and Shaqma are a part. Shaqma, on the road from the Burzil Bai Pass, had been used by militants as a route of infiltration from the northern areas. Though Shaqma’s capture would have bestowed some tactical advantage to the Indian Army, the force levels required would have been upwards of a brigade. The Indian Army had carried out no such moves. Besides, winter sets in by November, making meaningful operations impossible; therefore operations need to be launched in summer or early autumn. So unless the court astrologer at the Pakistan Army Headquarters had revealed some divine truth, it is a patent lie to justify the Kargil intrusions.

... contd.