New Delhi, Feb. 4: India today quietly rejected a Pakistani offer for help in finding the 10 soldiers on the Siachen Glacier who were buried when a wall of ice fell on their post early yesterday.
The Pakistani offer reciprocated similar offers made by India when Pakistani soldiers were trapped, or killed, in natural disasters that are all too frequent in the extremities of the Saltoro Ridge, the wall of mountains west of the glacier that demarcates the Actual Ground Position Line (AGPL) for 78 kilometres in the world's rooftop battlefield.
But the real reason for rejecting such offers is masked by the tactics of the armies in the harsh climes where they jostle to capture and retain high ground from where they can see the enemy.
The Prime Minister tweeted this evening: "Demise of soldiers in Siachen is very tragic. I salute the brave soldiers who gave their lives to the nation. Condolences to their families."
The 10 soldiers belonged to a Madras Regiment battalion. "It is a tragic event and we salute the soldiers who braved all challenges to guard our frontiers and made the ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty,'' said the Northern Army commander Lt General D.S. Hooda.
Sources in the army said a wall of packed ice that had crystallised into solid blocks fell nearly 500 feet on the army post burying it. The photographs of the position at around 19,600 feet in the area known as the "Northern Glacier" show it being dominated by a mountain feature.
The other side of the feature is probably controlled by or in the line of fire of Pakistani forces. At the base of the feature on the snow the ice crystals have dispersed in a craggy "puddle". Indian Air Force helicopters and army rescuers are at the spot. The rescuers were said to be digging several man-sized holes through the ice to check for signs of life.
Typically an army post at such heights would comprise fibreglass igloos and, probably, even ice caves.
Soldiers have been lost in Siachen ever since India's Operation Meghdoot in 1984 when the Indian troops captured a majority of the heights. Most soldiers on both sides die of natural causes. Since 2003 the Indians and Pakistanis have at least stopped firing at each other at Siachen because of a ceasefire that had held despite other bilateral tensions.
In April 2007, Indians recovered the bodies of two Indian Air Force helicopter pilots, Squadron Leader S. Basu and Flight Lieutenant Amit Sharma, with Pakistani help after their flying machine crashed.
In April 2012, more than 139 Pakistanis, eight of them civilians, were buried in an avalanche on the Pakistani side at Gyari. India had offered help then that the Pakistanis said they did not need. Pakistan called off the rescue only eight months afterward though most of the men were not found.
Both armies are sensitive of giving access to the other in the "oropolitics" (the jostling in the mountains) of Siachen. The 10 Indian soldiers who were buried in the avalanche on Wednesday were manning a post near a zone that saw some of the fiercest fighting in the glacier.
In 1986, Pakistani troops captured the highest point on the ridgeline and named it the "Quaid" post after Mohammad Ali Jinnah.
The "Quaid Post" offered not only a clear view of the Siachen Glacier to the Pakistani troops. It was also a vantage position from where they could monitor the movement of Indian troops and helicopters.
A year later, in April 1987, after failed attempts, Indian troops captured the height and named it the "Bana Post", after Subedar Bana Singh who was awarded the Param Vir Chakra, the highest award for gallantry, for his action in sneaking up to a bunker, throwing a grenade into it and shutting the door.
The successful attempt on post was possible because of Indian posts immediately to its northwest and south, in the region where 10 Indian soldiers were buried yesterday.
