New Delhi, March 18
Attempting to dispel doubts on the security needed for the Srinagar-Muzzaffarabad bus service, the Army today said a great deal of thought had been put into ensuring that there was fool-proof security for the Indian side of the 170 km journey and that the bus was not used by militants.
Talking to the media on the sidelines of a function to flag off the army women’s expidition team to Mount Everest, Chief of Army Staff Gen. J.J. Singh said: “We have given a great deal of thought and chalked out necessary preventive measures to check any such misuse.”
Incidentally, the Army this time round has dumped the Nepal route to attempt conquering the Everest due to possible threat from Maoists. The women expedition team would make a bid from the Chinese side instead of the traditional South Col route in Nepal.
“The Nepalese Government had cleared the team’s attempt from the southern side.
But keeping in view the security of the team and the movement of stores over a long distance prone to Maoists attacks, we have decided to let the Army women make the bid from Chinese north eastern ridge route”, General Singh said.
On the Srinagar-Muzzaffarabad bus, which begins from April 7, he said work was on full force to make the road safe for travel before its formal opening with most of the mines, some of them planted during the first Indo-Pak conflict in 1948, having been removed.
