Friday, December 28, 2007

India Puts Pakistani Border on "High State of Vigil"


And I don't blame them a bit. India could certainly see some of the chaos and violence spill into India from Pakistan and at the same time, the new imbalance will probably lead India to keep this alert level up for some time.
I shudder at the thought of an al Qaeda planned attack inside India just about now - that could be like a match to a powder keg.

Here's the full story from Reuters.


India orders "high state of vigil" on Pakistan border
28 Dec 2007 14:21:53 GMT

NEW DELHI, Dec 28 (Reuters) - India has put its border forces in "a high state of vigil" and suspended train and bus links after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto raised the spectre of chaos in Pakistan spilling over to its nuclear-armed neighbour.
Experts said India might not suffer much short-term impact, but they said Bhutto's murder in a gun and bomb attack could be another nail in the coffin for permanent peace in the region if militant violence holds greater sway over Pakistan.
Relations between the neighbours, which have been to war three times and nearly fought another conflict as late as 2002, are always fraught despite a fragile peace process in the past few years.
"There has been a general advisory to all the border forces to maintain a high state of vigil. You can guess why," a Home Ministry spokesman told Reuters on Friday.
"There are no specific threats as yet. They have been put on alert, there have been various speculations, jihadis, the spillover effect."

But for India, the worry is that instability in Pakistan could spill over the border and lead to increased militant attacks in Indian-ruled Kashmir or bomb blasts in Indian cities.
Police in Srinagar, summer capital of Indian Kashmir, fired tear gas on Friday at hundreds of stone-throwing Kashmiris protesting over Bhutto's murder, witnesses said. Protesters chanted "Long Live Pakistan" and "Long Live Bhutto".

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