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| Army plants Ladakh road with trees to obstruct Pak troops' view | | | Early Times Report
Drass (Kargil), July 03: To disillusion the Pakistani troops who have made National Highway 1A their prime target during the Kargil war to cut off Ladakh from India, the Army has grown thick lines of trees and stone walls along the road to deny a clear view of the life-line to enemy troops across the LoC.
"There are certain stretches on the road, which can still be clearly seen by the Pakistanis and they can keep a track of our movements. To deny them a clear observation of the road, we have built green walls of trees and stone walls to conceal our movements and deny them a clear look of the road," senior Army officials said here.
The "green cover" has been created in areas which were shelled heavily during the 1999 conflict.
"You can see the green cover on the road from Batalik to Kargil and Selmoh to Batalik. For increasing the greenery in the region, we have been also awarded the Green Governance Award by the Prime Minister in 2005," they said.
Commenting on this the "natural cover" for the troops to prevent them from being hit by possible enemy fire, an official said, "it was after the war, we realized that there were many stretches on the road, which could be seen by the enemy clearly from the peaks as well which were under their control.
"We tried to figure out the stretches of the road, which could be seen from there. So, we first planted trees and built walls along those stretches and then extended the green cover to other parts also. We will maintain this in the future".
During that war, Pakistani Army regulars had intruded in large numbers into Indian territory and captured Indian posts and from these posts, they used to direct artillery gun fire on Indian villages and Army convoys taking supplies for troops based in Leh and
Siachen in an attempt to cut the region from rest of the country.
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