BARAS POST, Dec 4: The Indian army said on Thursday it was taking advantage of a truce with Pakistan to step up fencing of the divided border in Kashmir to prevent militants from crossing.

“We have intensified fencing since the ceasefire. We are now able to work in a more vigorous manner,” Brigadier Rajinder Singh told reporters at the snow-patched Baras Post overlooking the Pakistani zone of Kashmir

“The fencing is going to be very, very effective. Until now the militants have not been able to breach it anywhere,” said Singh, who is in charge of army operations in northern Kashmir.

The nine-foot barbed-wire fence is stretched out along iron pillars next to anti-personnel mines set to detonate if anyone manages to sneak over.

Singh said Indian forces had fenced 190 kilometres of the 460-kilometre Line of Control, and that fencing would be complete by mid-2004.

“At some stretches it can’t be laid now because of snowfall and other conditions. We will lay fencing there afterwards,” Singh said.

He said that once the fence is complete, the infiltration of militants “would significantly come down.”

Indian troops peered through binoculars at facing Pakistani forces at Baras, a post 170 kilometres northwest of Srinagar where temperatures dip as low as minus 20 Celsius.

India and Pakistan have been observing a historic ceasefire over the LoC and their mutually recognized border in Kashmir since November 26, halting nearly daily skirmishes. —AFP