- NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's
huge army, massed along its border with Pakistan in a standoff between
the two nuclear powers that has brought them to the brink of war, will
hold large-scale exercises this month, officials and experts said on
Thursday.
-
- Operation Parakram (Might) and Operation Sangharsh
(Struggle),
the codenames of the different war games planned by the army, will be
staged
for a month in the deserts of Rajasthan and the state of Punjab.
-
- "These people are not going to just sit there and
eat and drink," a defence official told Reuters. "Obviously they
will have to be active through exercises," he said, adding lower level
manoeuvres were already on. No date was given for the exercises.
-
- One defence expert said the exercises would likely be
held against a "nuclear backdrop" designed to help troops cope
with such an attack. The army last year conducted exercises to prepare
soldiers for a biological, chemical or nuclear attack.
-
- India, incensed by an attack on its parliament last
month,
has demanded that Pakistan end what it calls "cross-border
terrorism"
including in Jammu and Kashmir, mostly Hindu India's only Muslim-majority
state.
-
- Islamabad has begun cracking down on Islamic groups,
but has asked India for evidence against a string of militants, including
Kashmiri separatists New Delhi blames for the parliament attack.
-
- The defence ministry official said the army routinely
conducted military exercises each winter, but this year the scale of the
manoeuvres would increase because of the heavy deployment of troops and
armour at the border with Pakistan.
-
- The Indian armed forces number some 1.1 million men,
and although defence officials declined to say how many had been moved
to the border, experts believe the majority of them have been mobilised
in a build-up which has triggered worldwide alarm.
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- NUCLEAR RISK
-
- Bharat Verma, a former Indian army officer and now editor
of the Indian Defence Review, said the exercises would include measures
to prepare for a nuclear attack.
-
- "The services plan ahead and for all contingencies,
they will try to work out nuclear readiness in these exercises," he
said.
-
- India and Pakistan conducted nuclear tests in 1998 and
have since been working on developing missiles capable of delivering
nuclear
bombs into each other's territory.
-
- India ordered the buildup along its western border, from
disputed Kashmir in the Himalayas south to the marshlands of Gujarat and
the Arabian Sea, to press Pakistan into renouncing support of militants
fighting Indian rule in Kashmir.
-
- Islamabad, which denies direct involvement in the Kashmir
revolt, has also deployed infantry and artillery at the border.
-
- India rules around 45 percent of Kashmir, Pakistan a
third and China the rest.
-
- The military build-up is the most powerful in terms of
firepower since India and Pakistan became independent in 1947.
-
- One defence official said some elements from the Indian
army's Eastern Command -- which is responsible for overseeing the border
with China -- had also been moved to the western front.
-
- But a minimum deployment would be maintained on the
border
with China, with whom India fought a brief war in 1962.
-
- Army convoys have been seen streaming towards the border
in Punjab.
-
- "You can't get a truck for love or money, the army
has commandeered all the trucks," said a purchase executive in an
Indian tyre factory. Trains have also been requisitioned to move troops
to the border.
-
- An Army Day Parade which is held on January 15 each year
has been cancelled and the military component of the Republic Day Parade
on January 26 has been scaled back.
-
- The air force, which too has been put on alert, will
also be drawn into the exercises this month.
-
- "The scale has not yet been decided, but we expect
to be involved," said an air force officer.
-
- The Indian army has also mined large stretches of the
border for the first time since the last war in December 1971 when India
supported Bangladesh in its bid for independence from Pakistan, effectively
cutting its neighbour in two.
-
- The two nations also went to war in 1947 and in 1965,
both over Kashmir.
-
- But despite the massive build-up, defence experts say
the army is highly disciplined and they played down the risk of a conflict
breaking out due to misunderstandings on the ground.
-
- "There is no panic or flap in military
circles,"
said Verma. "They are armed to the teeth and waiting for orders,"
he said.
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