Last Updated on February 2, 2021 at 3:56 pm
An assessment by the Border Security Force (BSF) states that Pakistan has hardened its attitude towards India after Balakot incident. Pakistan is widely using underground tunnels and drones to infiltrate into Indian territory through the Jammu border.
The BSF says that the threat on this particular border has deepened in the last few years.
Inspector general NS Jamwal, BSF’s senior most officer on the Jammu frontier, says that presence of the Pakistan Army, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agents, terrorists and Special Service Groups has been observed in the International Border belt and also along border outposts of Pakistan Rangers. He says that the Pakistan army is trying to extend its Kashmir ideology to the Jammu border like it does through the Line of Control.
Jamwal has also written in the BSF’s internal magazine Borderman 2020 that the joint threat of Pakistan Army/ISI/terrorists/criminals in the border belt should be seriously tackled. This scale of serious concern should be gauged from the fact that in the last six years, over 2,000 cross-border firing incidents have initiated from the Pakistan side. Other than that, at least 10 tunnels have been discovered by the BSF since 2012 on the Jammu frontier.
According to Jamwal, terrorist handlers coordinate with over-ground workers on Indian side, and help terrorists infiltrate across border in the darkness. These terrorists have to reach Pathankot-Jammu-Srinagar National Highway by 2 or 3 am so that they can get picked up by OGWs on Indian side and reach some safe place before sun rises.
In order to support these infiltrators, Pakistan has covered some areas in its side of the border with tall elephant grass from where snipers can target BSF troops. After the Balakot strike in 2019, Pakistan is also taking help of drones in order to surveillance forward areas of BSF along the Jammu border and to smuggle weapons.
Jamwal told Hindustan Times that Pakistan wants to cause disturbances in J&K and it is using tunnels and drones to infiltrate terrorists and weapons for the cause. Indian security forces have neutralized this threat to a large extent.
Sameer Patil, a fellow in international security studies programme at Gateway House, said that Pakistan has used tunnels in many earlier cases too, but security forces will face difficulties in dealing with drones. Terrorists, being supported by Pakistan, are using new ways to challenge India.
