The Hindu : Fernandes reveals 'Sarp Vinash' toll

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jul 31, 2003

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Fernandes reveals 'Sarp Vinash' toll

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI JULY 30. The Government today denied in the Rajya Sabha charges of delay in deploying the Army to conduct counter-insurgency operations, including operation Sarp Vinash, in the Hil Kaka (Surankote) region of Jammu and Kashmir, despite the intelligence agencies providing the necessary inputs.

Replying to a question by the former Chief of the Army Staff, Shankar Roy Chowdhury (Independent), the Defence Minister, George Fernandes, said intelligence agencies had provided "timely and adequate information'' regarding the frequent use of remote areas such as the Hil Kaka region by terrorists as transit points and hideouts and to store weapons and stores.

Based on these inputs, a number of counter-insurgency operations were launched in the area, including "Operation Sarp Vinash'', which was of a larger scale. There were no intelligence reports to confirm that a large number of militants flushed out from Hil Kaka had established similar bases in other areas of Jammu and Kashmir, especially in Doda and Kishtwar, he said.

"It is not true that we were late in attacking them (terrorists),'' he told Kalraj Mishra during question hour in the Rajya Sabha. In his first comment on Operation Sarp Vinash, Mr. Fernandes said 65 terrorists were killed and three arrested during the action. As many as 79 pieces of major weapons and large war-like stores were also recovered. During this operation, five Army personnel laid down their lives. The Minister assured the Members that adequate military measures had been put in place to check infiltration of terrorists into Jammu and Kashmir. The counter measures included surveillance of known routes of infiltration by installing electronic surveillance devices and through multi-tiered deployment and the erection of fences along the entire international border in Jammu and Kashmir and at selected stretches along the Line of Control (LoC). However, the situation on the LoC remained unchanged. From January 2001 to July this year, 947 terrorists were killed while crossing the border.

Asked by Bimba Raikar (Congress) and Prem Chand Gupta (Rashtriya Janata Dal) whether steps had been taken to improve the security at Army camps in Jammu and Kashmir following the `fidayeen' attacks, he said a review of the security arrangements had been carried out in order to take necessary steps to thwart such attempts.

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