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Kargil Plan
It started with India’s capture of Siachen glacier in 1984. The conspiracy was hatched after India’s successful capture of the Siachen Glacier in 1984 as part of Operation Meghdoot.
India took control of the 70-kilometre-long (43 mi) Siachen glacier , the longest glacier in the Karakoram range and second-longest in the world’s non-polar areas.
According to TIME magazine, India gained more than 1,000 square miles (3,000 km2) of territory because of its military operations in Siachen. The Siachen Glacier is the highest battleground on earth, where India and Pakistan have fought intermittently since 13 April 1984.
General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq had called an emergency meeting to discuss India’s capture of Siachen. The ranked officers who attended the meeting included Parvez Musharraf, who overturned Nawaj Sharif govt in later years in a military coup. Since Siachen was tough to reclaim, they drew a plan to capture lower altitude Kargil through a sudden attack on India.
After a lot of deliberations and thought process,General Zia ul Haq decided to not go for the plan as Pakistan was already involved in a war on its western front in Afghanistan,against USSR,at the behest of USA.
They also decided to not let Siachen capture by India get any media coverage ,a face saving act as it would have been humiliating for Pakistan army. Most of the Pakistan came to know about it only later.
When Parvez Musharraf became the head of the armed forces in 1998, he decided to start the Kargil Plan. The timing was important as Pakistan had just tested a nuclear bomb and they assessed that India wont go for a full fledged attack due to nuclear deterrence,and by the time India would retaliate,Pakistan would have captured Kargil. He didn’t take even Nawaz Sharif into confidence.
Which country’s government was the first to know about Kargil plan?
Surprisingly,it was China.
China came to know about it because they had bugged Musharraf’s hotel room when he had visited China just sometime before the Kargil infiltration. China informed USA government about it in a bid to avoid any nuclear war on its periphery.
But, by then it was too late. Pakistani army had already infiltrated India. USA informed Nawaz Sharif about the misadventure in his backyard.
Bewildered,Nawaz Sharif called an emergency meeting of top military officers of Pakistan. The Pakistani Army kept him in dark about infiltration by showing the troops position on a map which didn’t mention LoC and he was told by Musharraf that Pakistani soldiers had not crossed LOC.
While Nawaz Sharif was returning from the meeting,his advisor told him that the map did not have LoC marked on it, and therefore there was probability that he was being misled by the Army Chief. At that point of time,Pakistani infiltrators had entered approximately 30 km into Indian territory.
India initiated a full fledged counter attack on the infiltrators, a bit late,because the government came to know about infiltration only through the local tribes in the valley . PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee called Bill Clinton to inform that India was ready for a full throttle war with Pakistan,whatever it would take to push the Pakistani army behind. There won’t be any ceasefire till last Pakistani on Indian side was eradicated.
Bill Clinton and his 2 Press Releases
After knowing about his army’s misadventure ,Nawaz rushed to USA to seekBill Clinton’s help to put ceasefire in place.He was betrayed by his own army. During the meeting,Clinton told him in clear words that he had prepared two press releases for the post-meet media briefing.
One press release had mention of sanctions on Pakistan for military aggression.
Another had call for normalization of the situation,if Pakistan doesn’t reinforce infiltration and does not go for aerial strikes or any further escalation.
He asked Nawaz Sharif to choose any one press releases and act in accordance.
Nawaz Sharif chose the second press release.
Meanwhile,the Indian army had recaptured most of the posts and most of the Pakistani soldiers had been eradicated. The infiltrators did not receive any support from Pakistan govt ,or its Air Force as that would prove that Pakistani Army was the aggressor(which Pakistan was denying,they claimed it to be aggression by Mujaheedins and not the Pakistani Army), and it would invite international sanctions. Pakistan abandoned its own soldiers and did not even accept the bodies of those killed in the war.
Pakistan suffered a crushing defeat in Kargil war with India, for the 4th time since Independence.
