Army to upgrade counter-infiltration system along LoC

Fayaz Bukhari

Troops at the LoC in Kashmir.
Troops at the LoC in Kashmir.

SRINAGAR, Mar 14: Army is upgrading its counter-infiltration system along the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir valley soon after the trials of the new system are complete.
General Officer Commanding (GOC) 15 Corps, Lt General Subrata Saha told Excelsior that Army is upgrading its counter-infiltration system once the trials of the new system that is going on is complete.
“We have installed the new system before the snowfall along the LoC at few places for trial and once the snow melts its efficacy will be established. It will be definitely upgrade what we have now”, said the GOC.
Lt General Saha said that Army is in the process of procuring this new obstacle system and it will be definitely better than the existing one. He said that it will be combine of the existing wire and good surveillance alarm system. “It’s going to be a nice package, it is not going to be the obstacle of the wire by itself, its going to be with surveillance equipment”, he added.
The present system installed along the LoC is one decade old and the technological up-gradation has been necessitated after Pakistan upgraded its surveillance system along the LoC. “Our present system has been installed in 2003-04-05 with some up-gradations in between and the new system was need of the hour”, said the GOC.
Army is also fencing the parts of the LoC in Kashmir where no fencing has been done in the past due to difficult terrain. The fence in these areas will now be erected in the foot hills of these mountains.
Army over the years has upgraded the counter-infiltration grid along the LoC and it has given desired results. Out of 101 militants killed in Kashmir last year 59 were killed on the LoC while infiltrating. The new obstacle will prove more effective against infiltrators and will help Army in eliminating maximum infiltrators on the LoC putting less burden on the security forces who are operating in the hinterland.
The infiltrators over the years have also changed to better equipment and communication devices and their communication is not picked up by the present equipment along the LoC.
They have also better quality GPS compared a decade back. Earlier, they were using sports GPS equipment and now they are coming with absolutely high technology GPS systems. Their reliance on radio sets is a bare minimal. The communication is happening on Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP), over Skype and so on which is difficult to trace.