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Indian Army withdrawing troops from Rajori, Poonch

By Iftikhar Gilani

NEW DELHI: The Indian Army is planning to pull out its 39 Mountain Division currently stationed at Rajori and Poonch areas of Indian-Held Kashmir (IHK), with the 15,000-troop division expected to return to its base in Palampur in Himahal Pradesh soon.

Rajori General Officer Commanding (GOC) 9 Corps Lt Gen GM Nair confirmed the reports to the local media. “Some of the units have already reached their original base,” he said.

“The entire division has not been moved fully so far. It will take some time,” the GOC said.

The 39th Mountain Division was shifted to Rajori and Poonch districts in 1994 to undertake counterinsurgency measures and to check cross-border infiltration.

The division was briefly pulled out, but was again deployed following an attack on the Indian parliament in 2001.

Media reports said complete withdrawal might take another six months. General Nair said the sector was stable and no infiltration attempts had been reported from the area for some time.

“We have adequate security and counter-infiltration mechanism installed along the border with Pakistan,” he said.

Meanwhile, Indian Army Chief General Deepak Kapoor on Wednesday said Pakistan was “going beyond nuclear deterrence” if reports of it having a large stockpile of nuclear missiles with India-specific delivery systems were true. “There were certain degrees of deterrence and the figure of 70-90 nuclear warheads directed against a country certainly goes beyond the concept of deterrence,” the army chief said.

On the Chinese incursions along the border, the army chief said there was no cause for “alarm”. “The level of incursions is the same as last year,” he said. “The basic issue is to resolve the border dispute [with China],” Gen Kapoor told reporters.

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