While India continues its missile development program and testing its latest missiles including SMART and Rudram-1, intelligence reports by India’s premier intelligence organization RAW have given New Delhi another reason to worry and beef up its preparations against both of its rival neighbours.
According to officials reportedly associated with the RAW and quoted by Indian media, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army has been working with the Pakistani Army in an ever more cooperative scenario, even helping it to set up Surface to Air Missile (SAM) sites in Lasadanna Dhok in Pakistan administered Kashmir.
“It said approximately 130 Pakistan Army personnel and 25-40 civilians were working at the construction site. The control room for the system, sources quoted the intelligence report saying, would be located at the Pakistani Army’s brigade headquarters in Bagh district.
Ten PLA personnel, including three officers, will be stationed at the control room, the report stated. The R&AW, sources said, mentioned that similar construction had also been reported at Chinari in Jhelum district, and Chakothi in Hattian Bala district of PaK,” reported the Indian Express.
The increased cooperation between Beijing and Islamabad is surely raising alarms for the office-bearers in New Delhi. Even earlier in February, Indian Coast Guard had spotted a People’s Liberation Army Navy’s Jiangwei-Il frigate in Pakistani waters, around 11 nautical miles from the Indian port of Porbandar in Gujarat.
Islamabad is also set to receive their biggest ever and most advanced foreign warship from China, the Type 054A Frigate- and not one, but 4 of them. It is also to acquire 8 Yuan-class submarines from Beijing, beefing its capabilities in the Arabian Sea, and making its mark further into the Indian Ocean.
Even the Indian Chief of Defense Staff Gen. Bipin Rawat warned about a developing two-front war scenario earlier in September while speaking at the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF) conclave:
“Chinese economic cooperation with Pakistan, in Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir, along with continued military, economic and diplomatic support mandate high levels of preparation by us. This also poses the threat of coordinated action along the northern and western fronts, which we have to consider in our defence planning.”
It could be high time for India to realise the threat of the possibility of a two-front war. Even recently an image surfaced on social media showing Pakistani military personnel in PLA uniforms, which, if true, also depict the Pak Army’s cooperation with Chinese troops.
Here, we met with Chinese #PLA warriors along #China #India LAC.
Maybe some of them were standing at the #GalwanValley. pic.twitter.com/KYMMWYD5KI— Shen Shiwei 沈诗伟 (@shen_shiwei) October 3, 2020
In the above video, PLA soldiers are seen singing a nationalistic song titled ‘the Motherland Won’t Forget Me’. There are questions about the bearded man who according to OSINT analysts “looks different” than other soldiers in terms of features, height and built, said the report.
Experts talking to EurAsian Times, who did not wish to be named, said that it should not be surprising at all, if Pakistan or China have deployed some of their soldiers in Ladakh or Pak-administered-Kashmir.
We cannot even deny if the Pakistan Army was helping China to deal with India and vice-versa and even their (Pak soldiers) presence during Galwan valley clash cannot explicitly be ruled out.
With such deep levels of cooperation among two militaries and the ongoing standoff at the Ladakh border, the possibility of Pakistan also opening another front could spell trouble for the Indian armed forces.
