Lahore. Crack units of the Pakistan Army, deployed in strength and depth along the frontiers with India opposite Lahore, are keyed up and “itching to go,” according to senior Pakistan officers. “Let’s get on with it,” is the dominant mood. The frontier in the Punjab, where Indian forces can be expected to make their main thrust if war comes, and further north in the Sialkot sector, on the approaches to Kashmir, are tense, expectant and ominously quiet.

Unlike the frontiers in East Pakistan, where there have been continual clashes for several months, the Punjab borders have been almost without incident. This silence belies the concerted military build-up which Pakistan has undertaken in the past month. In an area of seemingly peaceful cropses, sunlit fields and placid villages, stretching for more than 100 miles from North-East to South-West, and back from the frontier for up to 20 miles, tanks, artillery and support vehicles in their hundreds lie in wait under heavy camouflage.

TANK TRAPS

New roads have been laid to facilities swift movement. In the most vulnerable sector, near Lahore, pioneer units have cleared out disused canals as tank traps. Heavily fortified pillboxes have been built to house heavy guns, which could shell Amritsar, holy city of the Sikhs, the nearest large Indian town. An extensive field communications network is in operation. Further back from the frontier, Chinese MiG and American Starfighter aircraft, long grounded for lack of maintenance, have been brought to peak air-worthiness. There are ample spares, ammunition dumps and fuel supplies.

Many village people in the border districts have been panicked by the elaborate war preparations and have fled. At night, the roads have been alive with carts heaped with family possessions. Some men have stayed behind to tend the crops.

‘WAGNERIAN’ MOOD

The most dangerous aspect of the situation is the difficulty of “unwinding” from the present state of tension. One round fired in error could spark a major war. There are many alarmingly over-enthusiastic unit commanders. Neutral observers in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, see little sign that the military regime is willing to help bring the situation back to normal. They describe the mood of Pakistan’s leaders as “Wagnerian”: ready, like Samson, to bring their own temple crashing round them rather than show “weakness.”

Informed sources, including Pakistanis, say that President Yahya and his inner circle of generals have blinded themselves by their own propaganda into believing that India is solely responsible for the crisis.

SECRET TRIAL

Even the United States, which at present has stronger influence than any other Western nation on Islamabad, has so far failed in efforts to persuade President Yahya that he must seek a compromise with East Pakistan political leader, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, whose secret trial is continuing. Without an early compromise, there is no chance of a peaceful solution to the Bengal border crisis and refugee problem.

About 35 Pakistan and eight Indian soldiers are reported killed in a series of border clashes lasting eight days in the Uri sector of Kashmir, 64 miles west of Srinagar. The Pakistan army forward mountain post was said to have been destroyed. Repeated clashes in Kashmir since early this month have increased the fear of an imminent Pakistani attack. The authorities are taking steps to ensure external security, including “severe action” against “anti¬national” elements, rumour-mongers and black-marketeers. Leave has been stopped for 100,000 government employees and several Ministers are now touring the border areas to supervise defence preparations and relieve the alarm caused by the border tension.