According to top government officials, the Pakistan army has deployed heavy artillery regiments close to the Line of Control (LoC) following the abrogation of Article 370 on August 5. Along with the deployment of more elite troops, the Special Service Group (SSG), Pakistan now has close to 80,000 troops along the LoC. This comprises over 30 infantry units, nearing about 30,000 troops, around 25 Mujahid battalions consisting of about 17,000 troops, armoured (tanks) battalion, at least one air defence unit of 1,400 troops, close to four division headquarters and around 9 brigade headquarters.
“Pakistan earlier didn’t consider its border with India as a volatile one like it does with the ones with Afghanistan and Iran, where it is constructing fencing and its troops have been regularly attacked. However, its outlook on its eastern border changed following the 2016 surgical strikes and the fire assaults conducted by the Indian Army in retaliation to unprovoked crossborder firing and terrorist infiltration attempts,” an official explained.
India has over 100,000 troops deployed along the LoC. The army has close to 250,000 troops deployed in Jammu and Kashmir.
Significantly, so far there have been over 2,472 ceasefire violations along the LoC this year, the highest in the last two years.
It is in this scenario that the Kartarpur corridor has been opened. For some analysts, the opening of the corridor could mark a new beginning in India Pakistan relations with the Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan inaugurating their end of the facilities last week. Other disagree.
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This story is from the November 18,2019 edition of News behind the News.
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This story is from the November 18,2019 edition of News behind the News.
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