Thu Jan 30
JAMMU, India - Two Indian army officers were killed and another was injured while removing land mines from fields near the India-Pakistan border, the army said Thursday.
All three were members of the 63 Engineering Regiment that had planted mines along 200 kilometers (120 miles) of border in the Jammu region a year ago as India and Pakistan deployed troops and prepared for a possible fourth war.
The explosion Wednesday night occurred in fields in the Arnia sector, about 30 kilometers (18 miles) west of Jammu, winter capital of Jammu-Kashmir (news - web sites) state.
The fields along the border were mined after a militant attack on India's Parliament in December 2001.
India blamed Pakistan's spy agency and Pakistan-based Islamic militant groups for the assault. The Pakistan government and the militants denied any involvement, but the two countries prepared for war. Intensive diplomatic efforts by the United States, Britain and Russia defused the crisis last summer.
The mine clearing began after the Indian government ordered its troops to pull back in November. It is a tedious process and the soldiers are able to defuse only about a dozen mines a day, an Engineering Regiment officer said. There are thousands of mines in the fields.
The officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the work must be done by hand and not with de-mining vehicles that the army uses in other border areas because Pakistani soldiers fire from across the frontier whenever they detect vehicular movement.
Both armies routinely fire at each other across the frontier in Jammu-Kashmir.
Fri January 24, 2003
SOPORE, India (Reuters) - T.K. Raju punches the air with his fist after a dog sniffs out a powerful bomb planted by rebels in Indian Kashmir. Raju, a dog handler with Indian security forces, gets a pat on the back from his boss and Rekha, the Labrador, grabs a biscuit after a three-hour search for bombs on a freezing morning in the Himalayan region. "It is worth the trouble when you detect bombs and mines planted by militants and save human lives," Raju, 25, told Reuters. But if there are moments of exhilaration, there are also times of extreme pain in the search for bombs in the Jammu and Kashmir state -- torn by a bloody separatist rebellion for the past 13 years.
Last month, Bhawana, a black Labrador in the army's dog squad, and her handler, Shiv Lal, were killed in a land mine explosion on a highway in south Kashmir. Bhawana and Shiv Lal are among dozens of sniffer dogs and their handlers working along with security forces who have died in Kashmir since separatists launched an uprising against New Delhi's rule in 1989.
Hundreds of Labradors and German Shepherds, trained by the army in the northern Indian city of Meerut, work alongside the security forces trying to quell the separatist rebellion in which around 38,000 people have been killed.
Officials declined to give specific details of the number of dogs employed in counter-insurgency operations.
"Where humans have failed, dogs have excelled in anti-insurgency operations. In Kashmir, every operation is led by a dog and a handler," said Colonel N.S. Kanwar, commandant of the army's main veterinary hospital in Srinagar.
"It is the dog and his handler who face militants first. One cannot imagine how many lives these dogs save," a dog trainer said.
SNIFFING OUT BOMBS
German Shepherds are also used to guard key installations and ammunition depots in Kashmir, while Labradors are used for sniffing out explosives, land mines, tracking militants and avalanche rescue operations.
"The specially trained Infantry Patrol Dogs have helped tremendously in detecting infiltration across the Line of Control and have successfully alerted the troops of militant ambushes," Kanwar said.
The 460-mile Line of Control or cease-fire line divides disputed Kashmir between nuclear rivals India and Pakistan, who have fought two of their three wars over the northern territory. India controls 45 percent of the region, Pakistan just over a third and China the remainder.
New Delhi accuses Islamabad of arming and sending Muslim militants across the border into the Kashmir region. Pakistan denies the charge, saying it only provides moral and diplomatic support to a Kashmiri struggle for self-determination.
"Rain or snow, cloudy or sunny, these gentle animals sniff hidden bombs and improvised explosive devices and make the main roads of Kashmir safe for civil and forces," said Ramesh Thakural, head of a Road Opening Party.
The road-opening parties are part of the security forces and form a vital part of everyday life in the freezing region.
Traffic begins moving on the main roads only after these groups, led by sniffer dogs and equipped with mine detectors, send an "all clear message" on their radio sets.
Officials say 115 people were killed and 1,059 wounded in explosions in Kashmir last year. Kanwar said the figure would be much higher but for the dog squad.
"Each year dogs successfully detect dozens of bombs," Kanwar said. "We are short of dogs... In a terrain like Kashmir it is impossible to operate without these dogs," he said, as a senior security officer called in asking for more dogs.
Each dog joins the army's dog unit at the age of 2 and retires after 10 years.
"It is for a bit of love from his handler and not for power, prestige or religion that these best friends of human beings die saving scores of lives," said Bakhshi Singh, a dog handler
Srinagar, Jan 15
A border officer was killed Wednesday and two others injured in a landmine explosion in Jammu and Kashmir, police said.
A border guard vehicle ran over the mine planted by suspected militants near near Sangrama township, 50 kilometres north of Srinagar.
A sub-inspector died immediately, while two border guards were seriously injured. The area was sealed off for cordon and search operations.
No militant group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.
The Indian army says it will take months to clear mines from thousands of acres of land along the border with Pakistan.
The mines were laid last year as tensions rose following an armed attack on India's parliament in December 2001, which Delhi blamed on Pakistan-backed militants.
Many of the mines are highly unstable
Since the summer, both sides have agreed to pull back troops and talk of war has receded. The demining exercise along India's northern and western border is one of the army's biggest and most dangerous peacetime operations.
Many farmers fear they will have to live with the lurking danger of mines for years to come. They are perturbed by reports that mine-clearing is seldom 100% successful.
The army's aim, however, is the comprehensive recovery and clearance of the mines.
Life has become very dangerous for locals
The gigantic exercise, which spreads across the states of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab and Indian-administered Kashmir, involves the precise relocation and recovery of more than one million anti-personnel and anti-tank mines.
Mine-clearing is perilous as mines may have shifted from their original locations for a variety of reasons. It is also painstakingly slow.
The relocation and neutralisation of each and every landmine requires the expertise of specially trained sapper units.
Military personnel engaged in this task in the minefields on the Punjab border told the BBC that it could take several months to complete operations there.
Rats
According to an officer leading a mine recovery and disposal unit less than 200 metres from the Pakistan border in Punjab, his job has been severely complicated by the problem of shifting mines.
This could either be due to monsoon floods or the work of field rats, who have been known to carry away scores of small anti-personnel mines over large distances.
In addition to this, the officer disclosed that after nearly a year of being exposed to the elements, some of the landmines had become unstable and prone to exploding without warning.
It is essentially because of such life-threatening hazards - as well as the scarcity of trained manpower and mine-detection equipment - that operations are taking so long.
The army says it has taken more than a month to clear just 500 of more than 50,000 acres of farmland that were laid with mines in Punjab.
Fears
Officers say they have to be certain that all mines have been cleared before they can safely return each minefield to agricultural use. For the thousands of border farmers in Punjab, who were literally forced to vacate their farms to make way for the minefields, the prospect of getting back their farmland is a very happy one.
But they are now apprehensive that they could be forced to live with the constant danger of unrecovered landmines that could explode without warning.
They also point out that the row between India and Pakistan is far from resolved and could easily escalate again.
GUNTUR: The police shot dead three Naxals of the outlawed People's War Group (PWG) at Bandla Mottu village in the district on Monday morning during intensive combing operations launched after the landmine blast on Sunday.
The police and the Naxals were engaged in a fierce battle in Kothur village. The Naxals were yet to be identified.
State Director General of Police P Ramulu rushed here from Hyderabad on Monday to personally monitor the combing operations. Additional CRPF companies were rushed from neighbouring districts after the blast.
Three Naxals, including a woman, were killed in the encounter during the massive combing operations launched by the district police following the landmine blast.
A landmine blast triggered by activists of the banned People's War Group (PWG) killed three constables in Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh on Sunday.
Three Naxalites were gunned down in an encounter that followed the explosion, according to police.
The motorcycle-borne cops were escorting three jeeps carrying officials of state government's 'janmabhoomi' (community development) programme when the PWG activists triggered the blast at Kothur village, police said.
While Koteswar Rao and Anji Reddy of special police party died on the spot, Srinivas Rao of Dachepalli police station succumbed to his injuries on way to hospital, police said.
The officials, police said, were on their way to hold a ‘gramsabha’ in the Naxal-infested Kothur village as part of the janmabhoomi programme.
Police launched a massive combing operation following the blast. The encounter that followed saw the gunning down of three Naxalites, including a woman.
The exchange of fire took place between Kothur and Dachepally villages, according to police.