Tuesday, March 1 2005 19:55 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Unusually heavy snowfall in Jammu and Kashmir may have damaged the 770-km long anti-infiltration fence along the Line of Control (LoC) at some places but Army officials maintained vigilance on the border has not been affected.

"The fence may have been damaged to some extent at some places. We will assess the situation once the weather improves", a top Army official said in New Delhi today (March 1, 2005), insisting that the Army had catered for such exigencies beforehand.

"We feel that once the snow melts there could be landslides further damaging the fence but the Army is prepared to face the situation and repair the damage," Brigadier Vikram Singh, Deputy Director General Military Operations said.

Heavy snowfall has not affected the surveillance operations on the LoC with as many as 42 terrorists killed in the month of February, he said.

Singh said ground sensors and other infiltration detection equipment, mostly acquired from Israel and France, had withstood the snow fury and were proving to be an effective barrier against infiltration even in winter.

He said the strategy of "Iron fist with Velvet gloves" expounded by the new Army Chief General J J Singh was giving security forces "encouraging results".

"While we continue to launch relentless operations against hard core terrorists, most of whom are foreign mercenaries, our effort is to give full opportunity to the indigenous cadres to shun violence and return to national mainstream", he said.

He said the Army was now conducting surgical operations with minimum or low casualties in our own forces.