India on Wednesday said that there is "solid information" that Pakistan government has taken steps to put down terrorism across the Line of Control (LoC) in disputed Kashmir and that infiltration has come down by a "considerable extent".
Defence Minister George Fernandes in an interview to Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency, spoke on the situation along the LoC following the November last cease-fire (announced by Pakistan) and voiced optimism about further improvement of relations between the two countries.
"There is solid information that Pakistan has taken steps to put down terrorism.
"But there is also evidence that there are elements who have nothing to do with the state and who are always planning strategies to continue their terrorist activities to derail the present movement towards bringing normalcy," Fernandes contended.
Asked as, who they were, he claimed that they were "autonomous agencies" who had been indulging in these kinds of activities but there was no evidence of their being funded by Pakistani authorities.
"Let's not forget that these very elements tried to assassinate the hand that earlier helped them," he said without taking any names.
"From the day of cease-fire there had not been one bullet fired by either side and the border is as peaceful and silent as it should normally be. Infiltration has also declined to a considerable extent for which there are two reasons," he noted.
The first reason, Fernandes said, was strengthening of the LoC by India as well as fixing sensors to the extent the forces could reach.
There were still some areas, which were yet to be covered but major areas of infiltration have already been taken care of, he was quoted as saying.
The second reason, he alleged, was that the cover that used to be available to the terrorist elements from Pakistani forces on the LoC, was hardly there. This, he felt, was due to improvement in Indo-Pak relations.
Comments
Comments are closed.