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Issue Date: April 14, 1965
India and Pakistan: Border Clashes
Indian and Pakistani forces clashed in a series of separate skirmishes April 5-12 in 3 sensitive border areas--along India's western state of Gujarat and the Sind region of West Pakistan, at the Kashmir cease-fire line and along the Assam State-East Pakistan border.
The most serious outbreak occurred April 9 in the disputed Rann (marsh) of Cutch in Gujarat along the Arabian Sea coast, where both sides used artillery and tanks.* In a report on the fighting, Indian Home Minister Gulzarilal Nanda said April 12 that 34 Pakistani soldiers had been killed and 4 taken prisoner. He said that 4 Indian border policemen had been killed and that 19 were missing.
(*India planned to develop a major seaport at Kandla, on the north shore of the Gulf of Cutch, in competition with nearby Karachi, Pakistan's only major seaport.)
Nanda had charged April 10 that Pakistani troops had touched off the skirmishing by firing at policemen in the Kanjarkot area. A Pakistani version of the incident, broadcast by Pakistan radio April 10, claimed that the fighting had started when Indian forces had "intruded into Pakistani territory...and attempted to dislodge Pakistani border forces from their positions." According to the latter account, Pakistani troops had taken "defensive measures," forcing the Indians to withdraw and leave "a number of prisoners."
The Pakistani Foreign Office claimed April 12 that 2 Indian tanks had been destroyed and 4 others disabled by Pakistani forces in an attack on the Kanjarkot post. In a protest to the Indian high commissioner in Pakistan, a Foreign Office spokesman April 12 said Indian captives had given "irrefutable evidence of the premeditated nature of the Indian attack."
Indian troops relieved the border policemen and exchanged artillery fire with the Pakistanis April 12 near Kanjarkot. A New Delhi spokesman said Indian soldiers that day also had repulsed 8 Pakistani armored cars that had crossed into Indian territory at nearby Sardarkote.
The frontier in the Rann of Cutch area had never been marked since the partition of India. Pakistan had built a road on Indian- claimed land around Kanjarkot and held 13,000 square yards of territory between the road and the line demarking the area claimed by New Delhi.
In a report to Parliament, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri warned April 12 that India would take "appropriate action" to force Pakistan from the Kanjarkot post. Shastri said that the Pakistani troops had used U.S.-made weapons in the April 9 clash and that the matter would be taken up with Washington.
The governments of India's Assam State and East Pakistan agreed April 10 to a truce that ended sporadic fighting that had been in progress since April 5 in the Karimganj sector.
Indian sources reported April 10 that 2 Pakistani soldiers had been killed that day in a clash with Indian troops on the cease-fire line in Kashmir. [See 1965 United Nations: Pakistan Accused Re Kashmir]
India April 10 formally reduced the titles of Kashmir's 2 leading officials as part of New Delhi's efforts to integrate the state more fully into the Indian Union. Karan Singh, the maharajah of Kashmir, had his title changed from chief of state to governor (the designation held by other Indian state heads), and Prime Minister Ghulam Mohammed Sadiq became chief minister (similar to the title held by heads of governments of Indian states). [See 1964 India: News in Brief] © 2011 Facts On File News Services
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