That was a really close call - just imagine referring to the world's highest battlefield as a 'Low Hanging Fruit'!Rsatchi wrote:https://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-w ... al-2543556
Is this what the liberandus kept harping as 'Low Hanging Fruit'
What other things did the previous government sign away.
Had it been left, rest assured Pakistan Army would have been sitting there the very next day.
Here's what I wrote about it.
Things stayed calm until the late 70s, when Pakistan started granting clearance to mountaineering / trekking expeditions in #Siachen on its own. This was accompanied by 'Cartographic Aggression', wherein Pak maps suddenly started showing their territory ahead of NJ 9842 with a straight, north easterly line joining the point with the Karakoram Pass.
Then in the early 80s, own agencies informed the govt of the day that Pakis were busy shopping for high altitude gear, with an intention to occupy Saltoro Ridge and enforce their claim line. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ordered the Indian Army to move in, and the army flew in a bunch of tough Kumaonis to occupy strategic heights / passes on the Saltoro Ridge. The timing was perfect, it pre-empted the planned Paki operation by mere weeks.
Pakis moved in soon, to occupy some unheld areas on the Saltoro, and trying to evict the Indian army.
Bloody clashes followed before the positions of both sides stabilized. The Indian army was in possession of almost all strategic and dominating heights on the Saltoro, less one sore spot - The Quaid Post - a post so important that the Pakis named it after their father of the nation, Jinnah. And then they lost it to a diminutive Khalsa, Bana Singh, in 1987!
A certain Brigadier Pervez Musharraf of the SSG was tasked to retake it. He threw in his best, and lost them all. Bana post continues to fly the Tricolour to this day.
The Pakis know that dislodging the Indians from this area is impossible. Thus began the chant of 'global warming', 'pollution' etc, ironically, from a country that gives a damn about its own forest cover. The dream of the previous Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh to convert #Siachen into a 'Mountain of Peace' was replied to by the Army with a single statement - 'Let Pakistan authenticate its and our positions on a map jointly signed by both nations.'
This was a pre-requisite of the army which basically told its govt that once we withdraw, if the Pakis come and sit on the Saltoro, then don't ask us to recapture it again, because we will be unable to do so.
They were right, Kargil had happened less than a decade ago, this DESPITE the LoC mutually agreed to in 1972! Bottomline - You cannot trust Pakistan to stick to its word.
Twitter LinkBottomline: Let us not let the sacrifice of hundreds of our best go waste because someone somewhere would rather trust the Pakis on their word instead of their past record.
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