Home Ministry activated its ITBP Frontier HQ in Jammu and Kashmir’s Leh-Ladakh district on Monday after moving it from Chandigarh as part of a plan to counter the ever-increasing Chinese patrolling activities in the region.
The North West (NW) frontier of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), tasked to police the 3,488-km long Indo Tibetan border in peace times, is headed by a officer holding the appointment of a Inspector General (IG) of Police.
“We are now functional from the Ladakh region beginning April 1 and the force headquarters in Delhi has been informed,” ITBP IG Arvind Kumar said from Leh.
The Indian tricolour and the ITBP flag were unfurled to herald the new move and the Frontier HQ will be functional from the existing premises of the existing ITBP sector HQ.
Sanctions have been received to create more buildings and logistics for the new HQ and Director General (DG) S S Deswal, the ITB Police chief, is expected to visit Leh soon.
The Frontier HQ had been ordered to move from its base in Chandigarh ‘lock, stock, and barrel’ to be functional at the new location from April 1. The distance between Chandigarh and Leh is 960 km.
Leh district in the mountains of Jammu and Kashmir is the HQ of the 14 Corps of the Army headed by a Lt General-rank officer and the new shift will allow a better interaction between the Corps HQ and the ITBP for peace time border policing.
The Army, raised a separate Corps in Leh after Jammu and Srinagar following the Kargil intrusion in 1999, has been demanding operational control over ITBP even during peace time for better Command and Control.
Having the ITBP Frontier HQ next to the Corps HQ at the same location will resolve these issues feels the Home Ministry, which though is not conducive for actual war conditions.
“We have to be on the border and that is why the frontier is being sent to the forward area,” DG Deswal had earlier said.
The Union home ministry had first mooted the proposal for this move in 2015 but it did not materialise owing to some “administrative reasons”.
As per the blueprint of deployment approved by the Home Ministry for the ITBP, the Leh frontier of the border guarding force will have three sectors that will be based in Leh, Srinagar and Chandigarh and each of these will be headed by an officer holding the appointment of Deputy IG.
The location is expected to see a further upgrade of the Frontier HQ as it is expected that the proposed ITBP western Region us headed by an Additional DG.
The new ITBP frontier HQ will control about a dozen battalions deployed along the Tibetan border that runs along Jammu and Kashmir. More battalions would be inducted in order to enhance the presence of the mountain-trained force on this icy, blizzard-prone mountainous border.
The ITBP has recently inducted a column of vehicles and communication equipment and all the weapons, and other paraphernalia that are being moved to Leh, that has both road and air connectivity.
The ITBP also has sanctions to create and refurbish 40 Border Out Posts (BoPs) in these icy heights of Ladakh, where personnel have to face hostile weather as the mercury slips to as low as minus 40 degrees Celsius and the altitude ranges from 8,000-14,000 feet.
Modern ‘composite’ BoPs, which have weather control mechanism and facilities for better drinking water and rest and recuperation are being created for the ITBP troops in this region and they are expected to be in position by the next winters.
Leh, till now, had an ITBP sector HQ headed by a DIG. The about-90,000-strong Central Police Force not only guards the scenic Pangong lake in this area but also the upper reaches of the Himalayan mountain ranges that run across Tibet.
As a part of plans to strengthen the policing along the China border, the government had similarly moved the North East (NE) frontier HQ of the ITBP from Shillong in Meghalaya to Itanagar in Arunachal Pradesh in 2016.
Arunachal Pradesh and Leh regions have seen frequent incidents of incursions, standoffs and few instances of physical pushing and shoving between the personnel of the Chinese PLA and the ITBP and even the Indian Army personnel over the last few years.
The 73 day-long military standoff between India and China in Dokalam (Sikkim) in 2017 is a grim reminder of these instances.
Sources have, however, said that 2018 saw an about 60 per cent decline in these incidents all along the eastern border front that the Indian states of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh share with Tibet.
