India-Pak hotline: Encrypted landline at heart of conflict de-escalation talks

In a modest chamber with a high ceiling, inside one of the most secure offices in India, in a white-walled room on the first floor of the imposing South Block, a phone sits atop a table.

- Rahul Singh

NEW DELHI:

It is always manned, sometimes by a major, and at other times by a lieutenant colonel, top officials told HT on Tuesday.

No one else accesses the phone.

The moment he picks up the receiver, another phone rings 700 km away in the Pakistan Army headquarters in Rawalpindi and is answered by a duty officer on the other end of the line, they said, asking not to be named. And when the phone rings, it means someone in the Rawalpindi HQ has picked up their phone.

This is no ordinary phone. It is the hotline between the Indian Army's director general of military operations (DGMO) and his Pakistani counterpart—the one that was activated at 3:35 pm on May 10 before the two countries announced a ceasefire that evening, ending four days of fierce fighting with Pakistan across the western border.

The two DGMOs agreed to halt firing and military action on land, in the air and sea starting 5 pm on Saturday, May 10.

The hotline was switched on again at 5 pm on Monday, May 12 for follow-up action by the Indian Army DGMO Lieutenant General Rajiv Ghai and Pakistan Army's Major General Kashif Abdullah to uphold the truce. The two agreed that neither side would fire a single shot.

Usually, brigadier-ranked officers from the two armies talk over the encrypted landline on Tuesdays.