NEW DELHI: A massive shot in the arm for the army deployed at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) is likely to come in the form of at least 3000 personnel of the mountain trained paramilitary force, the Indo Tibetan Border Police.
Sources in the Union Home Ministry said that a large scale movement of ITBP personnel deployed in law and order duties across the country are likely to be moved to various points along the LAC in the Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir region within a few days.
Highly placed sources in the government said 15 companies of the paramilitary force, who were engaged in law and order duties, have already been moved from the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir to Ladakh.
“An additional 30 companies are likely to be sent to the LAC over the next few days,” a source said. One company usually comprises 100-120 personnel.
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Around 7000 troops of ITBP remain deployed along the LAC in Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh region at any given time.
Massive deployment of armed forces is underway at various points along the LAC, including at Galwan Valley of Ladakh, where 20 Indian soldiers were clubbed to death by Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) troops on the intervening night of June 15/16.
The deployment of significant forces of ITBP will come as a force multiplier for the army because the paramilitary force needs no introduction to hostile terrain of Ladakh. It already possesses a great deal of experience of these mountains.
ITBP troops are deployed at 190 border outposts (BoPs) along the LAC in Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand in difficult terrains amid harsh climatic conditions where at some places, temperature even dips down to minus 50 degree Celsius.
It is the ITBP that has served as the border force, the eyes-and-ears of the Indian security establishment, all along the 3488 km long LAC between India and China, a lot of region of which falls along high-altitude areas.
Some of these posts which are manned by ITBP soldiers are as high up as 18,900 feet, considered ‘extremely high altitude’ zone in defence parlance.
All personnel of the force, from the jawan to senior officers, receive a one year long high altitude training.
The paramilitary force also runs the ‘Mountaineering and Skiing Institute’ which imparts specialised training in mountaineering, skiing, survival at high altitudes, conducting rescue operations and in river rafting.
The same institute also conducts pre-Antarctica induction training for the Indian expedition in Snow/Ice Craft and survival techniques at high altitudes.
Sources also say that ITBP will be deployed keeping in mind the new “rules of engagement” or the SOP when it comes to handling weapons along the border that India shares with China.
After PLA troops attacked and killed 20 Indian soldiers with spiked clubs, security officials say, that the 1996 joint agreement between the two countries, which forbade the use of service weapons along the border – “neither side shall open fire or conduct blast operations within 2 km of the Line of Actual Control” – is being reconsidered.
