20 November 2004	Saturday	07 Shawwal 1425

PESHAWAR, Nov 19: Pakistan has cleared about 99 per cent of the landmines it had laid along its border with India in the year 2001 and 2002, says an international landmines monitor report.

The five-year review report of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), which was released here on Friday, said that during escalation of tension with India in Dec 2001, Pakistani forces engaged in massive mine-laying operation, which continued till mid-2002.

In May 2003, Islamabad, which has yet to ratify the Mine Ban Treaty, informed the ICBL that about 99 per cent mines along the Indian border had been removed. Launching the five-year review report, executive director of Sustainable Peace and Development Organisation (SPADO), Raza Shah Khan, stressed the need of economic integration of landmine victims in Pakistan.

He said that most of the landmine victims in Pakistan belonged to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata). The report, comprising 1,300 pages, said that in 2003 there were at least 138 landmines/unexploded ordnance-related casualties in Pakistan in 2003.

The ICBL report said that the law enforcement agencies had seized antipersonnel mines and other weapons in Balochistan and Fata which, according to the government, were being smuggled by non-state actors from Afghanistan.

Landmines and improvised explosive devices have been used in tribal conflicts and against law enforcement agencies, mostly in Balochistan. It said that Pakistan Army troops allegedly made extensive use of antipersonnel mines during the Kargil conflict in mid-1999 and there were allegations that mines manufactured by state-owned ordnance factories had been supplied to militants.

Islamabad has repeatedly stated that the use of landmines was part of its self-defence strategy and it would oppose a ban until viable alternatives were developed. According to the ICBL, although there is no official information about the size of Pakistan's landmines stockpile, it had been estimated that Islamabad possessed at least six million antipersonnel mines, which constituted the fifth largest stockpile in the world.