Sensors along LoC soon -- Army

Sensors along LoC soon -- Army
GAURAV C SAWANT

NEW DELHI, SEPT 13: The Indian Army will shortly be acquiring state-of-the-art ground censors for strengthening its defences along the Line of Control (LoC), highly-placed Government sources have said.

``User trials of these censors have been successfully carried out by the army and the first consignment is now expected. Sanctions post-Pokhran will not come in the way of these advanced censors coming from the West,'' a Ministry of Defence (MoD) official said today.

According to sources, the user trials of the censors were held in the 28 Division sector (Kupwara) along the LoC and were successful. ``These censors were deployed along the LoC and they can differentiate between animals and human beings violating the beam. They have also been used to detect infiltration by terrorists and have given the army time to reach and ambush the infiltrators,'' sources said.

The Army has also acquired Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) from Israel and is trying them out in high altitude areas. The Directorate General of Military Intelligence (DGMI) has embarked upon an ambitious projects to upgrade its technical intelligence capabilities post-Kargil and is also acquiring modern systems. ``Intelligence is classified under three broad heads; human (humint), technical (techint) and imagery (imint). With additional deployment all along the LoC the humint aspect is covered. Now we are enhancing our techint and imint,'' sources said.

But the Military Intelligence (MI) lacks both funds and expertise. ``DGMI is not like CIA or KGB or MI6. We are by and large only a consumer of intelligence provided by other agencies like our Intelligence Bureau (IB) and Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). Our charter is gaining intelligence about enemy along the borders and around 50 km beyond. The soldiers are neither trained nor equipped to gather intelligence at higher levels,'' the sources added.

They further said that even post-Kargil there is no substantial increase in the monetary allocation. Before the conflict in May-July 1999, the allocation was less than Rs 12 crore annually and there has been very little increase. The Army has, for some time now, been asking for an amalgamation of intelligence- gathering apparatus and a larger say in the intelligence operations, they said.

The MI has also asked for allocation of more funds since the existing funds barely take care of the needs. ``This money is spent not only on the Army but also the Navy and the Air Force. It is grossly inadequate to meet the requirements. Especially since the role of the Army has increased manifold on not only the border and the LoC but also in counter-insurgency operations Jammu and Kashmir,'' the sources said.