From Al-Jazeera English
India plans to build a separation wall in the Himalayan region, but rebels have warned against such a move.
Taking a cue from Israel’s proposed separation wall along the Jordanian border, India plans to build a similar but higher 179km long wall in the Indian-administered Kashmir to separate the southwestern portion of the disputed region from Pakistan.
Pakistan and rebel groups fighting in the disputed Himalayan region have, however, warned against such a move.
According to Indian officials, the wall would pass through 118 villages within the three districts of disputed Kashmir and would be 41 meters wide and 10 meters high to accommodate bunkers and check posts.
“It would be one of the most significant Border Guarding System in the country which has not been experimented or created in India before,” Dharminder Parikh a top official of India’s Border Security Force (BSF) told Al Jazeera.
The BSF official said the fence would help “stop the illegal crossing by militants” and the requisition of land was sent to the Indian-administered Kashmir government in 2012 but “we have come to know that they there is still some land which has to be bought from the villagers for construction purposes.”
Kashmir, a disputed Himalayan region, is divided between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan by a de facto border called Line-of-Control (LoC) and further in the Southwest by a serpentine Ceasefire Line which New Delhi calls the International Border with Pakistan.
The LoC has been coiled by India with several metres high double-row concertina-wire fencing to block armed rebels from entering and launching attacks on Indian soldiers inside Indian-administered Kashmir. The wall always remains electrified and is linked with what many believe are Israeli-made surveillance devices.
