CHAKAN DABAGH, India, 25 October 2005 — The Indian Army is readying medical facilities, building bridges, clearing land mines and rushing supplies to its militarized frontier in expectation of a flood of stricken earthquake survivors from Pakistan, officials said yesterday.
“We have set up a 100-bed tent hospital which includes a 10-bed emergency unit for those who are critically injured,” Indian Army Brig. A.K. Bakshi said in Chakan Dabagh, 250 kilometers (155 miles) west of Jammu, winter capital of Indian Kashmir.
Chakan Dabagh is one of three points along the Line of Control (LOC), the de facto border dividing Kashmir between Pakistan and India, identified by New Delhi at the weekend as points where it plans to set up relief camps for earthquake victims.
India says survivors from the Pakistani zone can cross the LOC to the relief camps during daylight hours, be treated and gather supplies, and then cross back again.
It said the camps will be opened as soon as Pakistan gives the go-ahead, and they would be ready to operate by today.
Islamabad, for its part, has proposed five locations on the LOC where Kashmiris from both sides can cross over in either direction to assist relatives hit by the October quake that left more than 53,000 people dead and about 3.3 million homeless on the Pakistani side.
Another 1,300 people were killed on the Indian side of the frontier.
In New Delhi, Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran said yesterday India was preparing to meet with officials from Islamabad on opening up the LOC across which, just two years ago, the nuclear rivals were engaging in fierce artillery duels.
“We have sent our proposal to Pakistan. They have suggested that officials of the foreign ministries of both sides meet to discuss this and reach a common understanding on this. We are preparing for this,” said Saran.
Brig. Bakshi said the tented hospital would benefit survivors of three villages across the LOC, one of the world’s most militarized frontiers.
“People in a 15-kilometer (nine-mile) radius can get medical aid here,” he said, scanning the villages of Tedri Nod, Rawlakot and Madarpur across the LOC.
The brigadier said his engineers had built a three-kilometer (two mile) stretch of road to connect Chakan Dabagh to the Indian garrison supply town of Poonch in southern Kashmir.
Elsewhere, Indian Army engineers were installing a “flying fox” bridge across the Neelum River at Teetwal in northern Tangdhar district and soldiers were ferrying food by mule to Kaman Post in the devastated Uri district — the two other points India has proposed as relief centers.
Engineers said they had been working nonstop since Tuesday to clear land mines from the LOC to allow the safe crossing of earthquake survivors.
Col. Hemant Juneja, the Indian Army’s chief spokesman in Kashmir, said New Delhi would be flexible on the relief efforts.
“First of all, Teetwal and Kaman Post will also act as main relief supply stores with communications and all other logistics,” Juneja told AFP by telephone from Srinagar, summer capital of Indian Kashmir.
“It will now depend on Pakistan to accept whether our civilian doctors go across the LOC, or let people come to our relief camps, and allow the injured to come across for treatment and then go back. These are the possibilities,” the colonel said.
Indian Troops Kill Five Suspected Rebels in Kashmir
Troops have shot dead five suspected militants, three of them along the de facto Kashmir border where India is planning to set up relief points for Pakistani earthquake victims, officials said yesterday.
Three were killed late Sunday in northern Kupwara district, an Indian Army spokesman, Vijay Batra, told AFP.
