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Kashmir's Wheat Fields Turned Into A Basket Of Mines
Chanduchak (AFP) June 11, 2002 At the last Indian village along the international border with Pakistan, school teacher Joginder Singh treads warily along a road lined either side with barbed wire fences and red warning triangles. Sprawling wheatfields lie behind the fences -- but far from offering villagers the staff of life, the fields are death traps. All have been heavily mined by Indian soldiers in the aftermath of an attack on the Indian parliament New Delhi blames on Pakistan-based Islamic militants. "The soldiers came in and took over our fields. They laid a lot of mines in them. My three-acre wheat farm is a complete minefield," said 54-year-old Singh, who had come back to visit his house in Chanduchak village, south of Kashmir's winter capital Jammu. Singh, like the 184 families of Chanduchak, are currently put up in tents near an agricultural university in the nearby R.S. Pora district. "Our whole crop has been destroyed," Singh said. "After the 1971 war with Pakistan, it took months and months to de-mine our fields. I remember one child being blown up a year after that war as he stepped on a mine." Another child died about the same time in a similar incident, he added. The farmers, some of whose properties are separated from Pakistani territory by no more than a mud wall, are worried they will not be able to cultivate their lands for some time. "On one side we have Pakistani tracers burning down our farms and on the other we are getting trapped by the mines," said 62-year-old bespectacled Jagga Ram. "We are denied access to our own village and it is out of our bounds. We are totally cut-off," he said referring to strict restrictions clamped on movement of people to the border. The villagers said they were yet to get a compensation package from India's defence ministry. "I have lost 40,000 rupees (834 dollars) in the last six months," school teacher Singh said. "I think they (the defence ministry) will give us something." This month a boy was killed and three other children were injured when they accidentally triggered a landmine in a wheatfield near India's heavily-militarised western border in Rajasthan. Military sources said both sides of the 440-kilometre (275 mile) Line of Control (LoC), a de facto border separating Indian and Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, and the 185-kilometre (115-mile) international border are covered in mines. Previously, only the LoC was mined but following December's attack on parliament, which New Delhi blames on Pakistan-backed militant groups, the international borders have also been packed with explosives. In April, the Indian army was forced to evacuate some Rajasthani villagers living near densely mined fields near the Pakistan border as rising summer temperatures set off a series of explosions. US-based rights group Human Rights Watch claims India and Pakistan have heavily fortified their common border since the parliament attack, describing it as one of the largest mine-laying operations anywhere in the world in recent years. At least 150 Indian soldiers have been killed in accidental landmine explosions since the tense standoff began. The International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) said India and Pakistan are respectively the fifth and sixth largest landmine "powers" in the world, with an estimated stockpile of about 11 million landmines between them. Parts of the border between the two countries are already regarded as some of the most densely-mined areas in the world. India is not a signatory to the 1997 International Campaign to Ban Landmines treaty. "Our worst fear is not only the possible war in itself. We fear for our lives even after it is over as we have to step into these mined fields," said villager Manjit Singh who owns a small farm in Chanduchak. All rights reserved. � 2002 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse. Related Links SpaceDaily Search SpaceDaily Subscribe To SpaceDaily Express 
India Flip-Flops On Nuke Stance
New Delhi (AFP) June 3, 2002The Indian military Monday distanced itself from comments of its civilian boss on the use of nuclear weapons in war but the country's chief security advisor said New Delhi would retaliate in kind if attacked by atom bombs.
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