Why The Indian Army Is Closely Watching The Loc indiatoday.in

The post-Balakot term breaks over, militants are back in their camps and launch pads. Now, more than ever, they have the potential to spark an Indo-Pak conflict
Between August 30 and 31, army chief General Bipin Rawat visited the Line of Control (LoC) near Gurez, spent time with the troops and, among other things, peered through binoculars across the border. Gen. Rawat, a former General Officer Commanding of the Baramulla-based 19 Infantry division, which has over 15,000 soldiers strung across the LoC, was at the frontlines to review the operational preparedness of the formations. The photograph, shared by the army on social media, instantly became a meme.

The Indian army is watching the LoC very, very closely. And for good reason. Army officials say the chatter – field intelligence, radio intercepts and interrogation of captured Pakistani terrorists — suggest that Pakistan’s deep state has restarted the infrastructure of terror. This infrastructure allows so-called non-state actors, such as the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), to recruit, motivate, train and, finally, send hundreds of its citizens as terrorists across the LoC with India.

The apparatus to inflict this war of a thousand cuts has been in operation for 30 years now, almost without respite. In recent months, it had halted just once. On February 26, soon after Indian air force jets bombed the JeM training camp at Jaba Top in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, the terrorist networks were put on pause. The fact that Pakistan was also under intense scrutiny from the Financial Action Task Force over funding terrorism didn’t help matters either.