Army gets sole charge of Kargil, Leh

Army gets sole charge of Kargil, Leh
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

New Delhi, January 23: The Army has been put in total control of the recently-constituted unified headquarters at north of Zojila as part of the Centre's `pro-active' policy to be pursued in Jammu and Kashmir.

The newly set-up 14 Corps will now look entirely after the Drass, Mushkoh valley, Kargil, Chorbat La and Leh areas and will be responsible for tackling any insurgency activities from that front, official sources said here.

Besides guarding the borders, 14 Corps, commandered by Lt Gen A B Masih will also check cross-border terrorism in a stretch from Ghumri to Siachen, they said.

The 14 Corps will be responsible for correlating all intelligence reports and taking suitable action as and when necessary, the sources stated.

Meanwhile, the responsibilities of new anti-insurgency forces kilo force and the already existing Victor force of 15 Corps in Srinagar have been further increased and the forces have been asked to look after all day-to-day activities relating to militancy.

While kilo force,headed by Major General Nirbhay Sharma, former deputy director general of military operations in the North-East, will look after North Kashmir areas comprising Kupwara, Baramulla, Sopore, Handwara and Uri, the Victor force will be in charge of South Kashmir areas like Pulwama, Anantnag, Khanbal and Phalgam areas, the sources said.

The revamping is being done to prevent attacks by militants on security installations in the state.

The Centre has also decided to raise more specialised battalions of the para-military forces and restructure the counter-insurgency (CI) grid as part of the offensive to check terrorism in the state.

In a bid to synergise operations among various security forces and intelligence agencies, the CI grid has been divided into 49 sectors as part of a three-tier command and control structure under the unified headquarters (UHQ).

The security forces have also been asked to adopt pro-active approach against terrorists in the hinterland and to establish areas of domination.

Earlierthis week, a high-level meeting chaired by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee discussed the broad parameters to effectively counter the nefarious designs of the terrorist groups being aided and abetted from across the border for escalating the level of proxy war.

The Centre's decision comes in the wake of several suicidal attacks following directive from Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) asking militant groups operating in the state to form `fidayan' (suicide) groups to carry out subversive activities against security forces.

The sources said ISI has directed Lashkar-e-Toiba and Harkat-ul-Mujahideen to form small `fidayan' groups for carrying out attacks against security forces in the state. Meanwhile in Jammu, barely four days before the Republic Day, police here today shot dead two militants of a suspected suicide squad and recovered a large quantity of arms and ammunition meant for disrupting the Republic Day celebrations as the state was enveloped in unprecedented security cover to thwartany sabotage.

The two foreign mercenaries of Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, arrested earlier today, were killed when they attacked a police party which had taken them to a spot to unearth explosives hidden by them, a police spokesman said here.

Mohammad Younis and Mohammad Aslam of Jhelum and Mirpur areas, respectively, in Pakistan, had been arrested from a local hotel, he said. Following their revelation during interrogation that they had hidden some explosives in Tawi area behind the warehouse, the two were taken to the site where one of them picked up a grenade and threw it at the police party, he said.