Ceasefire in J&K extended

By Harish Khare

NEW DELHI, FEB. 21 The Vajpayee Government today decided, as expected, to extend the current ceasefire in Jammu and Kashmir, but the formal announcement of the duration, the nature of the extension and other details would be announced by the Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee in Parliament tomorrow. However, it is believed that the decision is to extend the ceasefire for three months.

The decision was taken at a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security this evening. Besides the Prime Minister, the Home Minister, Mr. L. K. Advani, the Defence Minister, Mr. George Fernandes, the External Affairs Minister, Mr. Jaswant Singh, the Finance Minister, Mr. Yashwant Sinha, the National Security Adviser, Mr. Brajesh Mishra, the Chief of the Army Staff, General S. Padmanabhan, and various senior officials, associated with security agencies, were present.

After the 80-minute meeting, all that Mr. Advani would say was that the CCS reviewed the situation in the State in ``all its aspects''. The details of the decision would be first announced in Parliament, he added.

Endless debate

The options before the Government had been debated in the last few days almost endlessly, and the positions taken by the various members of the CCS was also well known. Officials had been at pains to point out that it would be wrong to suggest that the Vajpayee Government was divided; different assessments about the pluses and minuses of extension or non-extension of cease- fire did not mean irreconcilable divisions. The differences have quite a bit to do with the assessment about Pakistan's sincerity in the peace process. In this context, a major input before the CCS participants has become the steps taken in by the military regime in Islamabad to rein in some of the jehadi groups.

By and large, the initiative for the peace-strategy originated, and has been sustained by the Prime Minister and his senior aides, and to that extent ``the ceasefire'' remains ``Mr. Vajpayee's baby''. Mr. Advani and Mr. Fernandes were sceptical while Mr. Singh was more enthusiastic about the extension, and Mr. Sinha tried to gauge the Prime Minister's mood before taking a position. The Army had been a vocal advocate of the peace strategy.

Earlier in the day, the Vajpayee administration had armed itself with a general endorsement from the political parties of the peace initiative. This endorsement helped create an ambience where it was not easy for the doubters within the CCS to persist with their reservations. Nonetheless, the next challenge would be to see to it that the doubters - in Delhi and Srinagar - do not succeed in sabotaging the peace strategy. However, the longer ceasefire reduces the efficacy of the potential saboteurs.

PTI reports:

Eight suspected foreign mercenaries and an Army jawan were killed and a Junior Commissioned Officer was injured in an encounter in Dhoom-Soom forests in Poonch district yesterday, a defence spokesman said in Jammu today.

The Army launched a search operation after a patrol party sighted the group in the forests. In the encounter, which lasted nearly five hours, the eight ultras and a havaldar, Jora Singh, were killed. A subedar, Harshad Khan, was injured.

A gun with 115 rounds, 5 AK rifles with 18 magazines and 297 rounds, hand grenades and Rs. 88,000 in cash were recovered from the militants.

'Meaningless exercise'

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