‘India moves sizeable troops from IIOJK to China border’

Former Indian army chief says rules of game have changed.... China is now primary front

SRINAGAR:

An unspecified number of troops deployed in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) to crush the freedom movement has been shifted to the border with China in Ladakh province, where the Chinese and Indian armies have been locked in a stand-off since March last year, a reputed Indian defence analyst said.

"I can't reveal the numbers but a sizeable number of Rashtriya Rifles soldiers have been moved to the Line of Actual Control (LAC)," Pravin Sawhney, a former Indian army officer and editor of defence magazine, FORCE, told Anadolu Agency.

"The fact that they have been shifted to the LAC should be an indicator enough for the reason behind the move," Sawhney stated when asked what prompted the withdrawal and redeployment.

Sawhney has been advocating the withdrawal of the army from the Himalayan disputed territory so they could focus on border security and what he considers the bigger threat -- the People's Liberation Army. He has called for “making peace with Pakistan and seeking areas of cooperation with China.”

The LAC is the undefined border between India and China in the Ladakh region and currently the site of a military standoff between the two neighbouring countries' armies. India moved thousands of troops to the border after 20 Indian soldiers were killed in a clash with Chinese soldiers armed with nail-studded clubs in June last year. The casualties on the Chinese side were not known.

China is believed to be holding a slice of the territory in Ladakh, which was until August 2019 part of IIOJK but was carved out as a separate Union Territory, a move China opposed.

The Rashtriya Rifles (RR) is the name given to the Indian army's battalions that have been deployed in IIOJK since 1990 to counter the freedom movement that erupted the same year.

Human rights and pro-freedom groups have accused the RR of committing grave human rights abuses, like torture, extra-judicial killings, and enforced disappearances of civilians. Recently, the Indian army initiated proceedings against a RR captain charged with killing three labourers and passing them off as "terrorists" on July 18 last year.

Sawhney also tweeted that India's Chief of Army Staff General Manoj Mukund Naravane told him in an interview that “China is (now) the primary front. Rules of the game have changed.” Besides the redeployment of RR troops to Ladakh, Sawhney tweeted that the “overall RR headquarters are being moved from Delhi to Udhampur.” Indian army's Northern Command is headquartered in Udhampur district of IIOJK.

“Most of the RR soldiers have been withdrawn from northern Occupied Kashmir. The situation in south Occupied Kashmir is not conducive for any withdrawal at the moment," a police officer told Anadolu Agency on the condition of anonymity.

“Whether this shifting is temporary or permanent depends upon how the situation in Ladakh unfolds," he said, adding that the withdrawal has been going on for some time now.

Several telephone calls and messages from Anadolu Agency to the Srinagar-based security spokesman Col Rajesh Kalia went unanswered.