By PTI
NEW DELHI: Army Chief Gen MM Naravane on Friday reviewed the key operational plans of Mathura-based 1 Corps for the northern borders in sync with the overall strategy of re-balancing and re-orienting the force to confront any challenge along the 3,400-km frontier with China.
The 1 Corps, a reserved strike force, has been specifically focusing on the northern sector in view of the evolving challenges following the “unilateral and provocative” attempts by the Chinese PLA to change the status quo by force in various friction points in eastern Ladakh over 20 months ago.
The Army chief reviewed various operational plans of the Corps with a focus on the northern borders, official sources said.
They said the ongoing crisis in Ukraine has in a way reflected the various possible and dynamic security challenges and that there are lessons to be learnt from each of such conflicts.
“The Ukraine situation has to be seen in the context of similar attempts that could be made by the PLA along our contested Northern borders. At no stage should people lose focus on the northern borders,” a senior official at the Army headquarters said.
“In view of the threat from our northern adversary, the Indian Army continues to maintain its operational priorities with an intent to develop capabilities with a long-term perspective,” he added.
The official said the ongoing situation along the northern borders warrants the Indian Army to re-align the operational tasking of its reserve formations refine its warfighting capabilities in high altitude mountainous terrain.
“Various situations and responses of the formation were wargamed at Mathura and suitable lessons were also being drawn from various modern-day conflicts across the globe,” the official said.
The sources said the “unilateral and provocative” actions by PLA to change the status quo by force along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) were adequately responded to by the Indian Army.
While both militaries are engaged in dialogue to resolve balance issues, the Indian Army maintains adequate force levels in areas where dis-engagement is yet to take place, they said.
The sources said that based on the “threat perception, re-balancing of certain forces was carried out recently in which re-orientation of forces to northern borders was carried out while retaining effective capability along the Western front.”
They said this is the result of regular threat assessment and internal deliberations to re-organise and re-align forces in keeping with the Army’s mandate of ensuring territorial integrity and to cater for the major augmentation of the PLA forces and military infrastructure.
They said the role and operational plans of 1 Corps, which has been re-assigned to the northern borders, was reviewed by Gen Naravane on Friday.
The border standoff in eastern Ladakh erupted on May 5, 2020, following a violent clash in the Pangong lake area.
The face-off escalated after the Galwan Valley clashes on June 15, 2020.
Following the clashes, both sides gradually enhanced their deployment by rushing in tens of thousands of soldiers as well as heavy weaponry.
As a result of a series of military and diplomatic talks, the two sides completed the disengagement process in Gogra as well as in the north and south banks of the Pangong lake last year.
Each side currently has around 50,000 to 60,000 troops along the LAC in the sensitive sector.
The Army’s airborne and special forces carried out aerial insertion and related drills in an exercise in the Siliguri corridor along the northern border with China to test their response mechanism to deal with any contingencies, officials said on Friday.
The Siliguri Corridor is a stretch of land bordering Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh.
It connects the Northeast region with the rest of India and is considered very important from the military perspective.
“The airborne and special forces of the Indian Army rehearsed their aerial insertion capability and rapid response along the northern borders in an exercise, with combat free fallers being inserted from an altitude of 20,000 feet, along with logistic supply loads on precision-guided platforms,” said an official.
The troops after landing at a location in the Siliguri Corridor, established surveillance positions to guide accurate fire onto selected enemy targets,” the official said, explaining the scenarios enacted during the drills.
“As a follow-up, an airborne force of 400 personnel was thereafter deployed by air in rapid succession to swiftly capture objectives,” added another official.
