Increased Pakistan’s Border Action Team actions to figure in DGMO-level talks

NEW DELHI /SRI NAGAR:  The Director General Military Operations (DGMO), Lt. Gen. Anil Chauhan, it is said, will raise the issue of an increase in actions by Pakistan’s Border Action Team (BAT), during scheduled talks with his Pakistani counterpart, Major General Nauman Zakaria, on January 1, 2019. This follows the killing of two BAT members on Sunday night when Indian troops foiled a BAT raid across the Line of Control (LoC) on an Army post in Nowgam sector of north Kashmir’s Baramulla district.

A large cache of arms and war-like stores with Pakistani markings were recovered from the slain intruders. The Army said it would ask Pakistan Army to take back the bodies of its slain soldiers. The Nowgam BAT action is said to have been the fourth in the last 15 days, all of them foiled. According to the sources, the Pakistan Army, specifically its Rawalpindi-based 10 Corps, is under tremendous pressure to cause major damage to Indian troops after two Pakistan Army officers were injured in Indian firing about 15 days ago.

“Major General Shamshad Mirza, Corps Commander 10 Corps, which controls the militancy, is under pressure as on the one hand their infiltration bids are being foiled, their cadre in the valley is being targeted with pinpoint intelligence, and here their two officers got injured.” said a source not wanting to be identified. Pakistan’s BAT has tried to hit Indian troops on both sides of the Pir Panjal mountain range, which divides the area of responsibility of the Srinagar- based 15 Corps and the Nagrota-based 16 Corps.

In the south, the BAT actions took place in Mendhar and Poonch, and in the north, BAT teams attacked in Tangdhar and Nowgam. On Sunday night, the BAT team, which comprises Pakistani soldiers and highly trained militants, attempted to move towards Indian Army posts in Nowgam sector under cover of thick jungles close to the LoC. “The intruders, who were wearing combat dresses of Pakistani regulars, the BSF and old Indian Army uniforms, were facilitated by heavy covering fire from machine guns, mortars and rockets from Pakistani posts,” he said.