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India to maintain some forward posts: George

Siachen Glacier, December 25
India today said some of the forward positions on the border with Pakistan would be maintained for strategic reasons even after the completion of troops withdrawal.

“Whatever (withdrawal) had to done has been done. For strategic reasons, some of the forward positions that we have, we will maintain”, Defence Minister George Fernandes said addressing troops at the world’s highest battlefield.

Accusing Islamabad of showing no let-up in support to cross-border terrorism, he said, at any given time, up to 3,000 infiltrators were waiting to cross over to India.

Mr Fernandes said day-to-day firing on the border had come down significantly. Keeping his date with the troops for the third year in a row, the minister visited the glacier, extended Christmas greetings to Army personnel in the snow-clad mountains and distributed cakes.

He told reporters at the base camp that demining of the forward areas would be done very carefully as India had already lost about 80 personnel in the process.

The Defence Minister told the troops that, after December 13, a situation was created where we had to deploy our forces in full strength.

“We have achieved our objective of their deployment with the successful conduct of elections in Jammu and Kashmir,” he said.

“People the world over had doubted whether the elections in Jammu and Kashmir would be fair but the elections were held so well and that was possible due to the deployment of the security forces,” he said.

After visiting the icy heights, he flew to the deserts of Sriganganagar to witness first hand the completion of the troop withdrawal from the international border.

Mr Fernandes, who would visit Anupgarh and Suratgarh to see the demining operations, said “demining would take about three months”. PTI