Policy

The Republic of India has not acceded to the Mine Ban Treaty.

In December 2017, India repeated that it “supports the vision of a world free of anti-personnel mines.Our presence as Observers in this and previous meetings of States Parties…is an expression of our support for these objectives.”[1] In October 2017, India reiterated its long-held position that the Amended Protocol II of the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) “enshrines the approach of taking into account legitimate defence requirements of states with long borders.”India has previously offered the same explanation each year, stating it “supports the vision of a world free of anti-personnel mines” and that the “availability of cost-effective alternative military technologies that can perform the legitimate defensive role played by anti-personnel landmines will considerably facilitate the goal of the complete elimination of anti-personnel mines.”[2]

India attended, as an observer, the convention’s Third Review Conference held in Maputo in September 2014. India sent an observer to the Mine Ban Treaty Sixteenth Meeting of States Parties in Vienna in December 2017, but did not attend the intersessional meetings in June 2018.

On 4 December 2017, India abstained from voting on United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution 72/53 calling for universalization and full implementation of the Mine Ban Treaty, as it has on similar annual resolutions since 1997.

Subsequent to a bilateral meeting with the delegate of India to the Vienna Meeting of States Parties, at the invitation of the delegate, the ICBL sent a Note Verbale to the government of India regarding its concerns about the Mine Ban Treaty and requesting the government of India consider undertaking a comprehensive policy review, with both military and civil input, on its use of antipersonnel landmines. As of August 2018, no official reply to the note was received. To the side of the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) meeting, two representatives met informally with the Monitor but indicated that no such review was planned, and that they did not believe that the casualties indicated by the Monitor were accurate.[3] In February 2018, much of the material and suggestions within the Note Verbale were published in the Indian press.[4] In April 2018, a major newspaper in Jammu & Kashmir called on both India and Pakistan to join the Mine Ban Treaty.[5]

India is party to the CCW and its Amended Protocol II on landmines and Protocol V on explosive remnants of war.

Production, transfer, and stockpiling

India is one of the few countries still producing antipersonnel mines. India states that all production is authorized and controlled by government agencies.[6] Production of antipersonnel mines appeared to be ongoing in 2016, 2017, and to some extent in 2018. Purchase order records retrieved from a publicly accessible online government transaction database list at least a dozen private companies providing components of M-16, M-14, and APER 1B antipersonnel mines to the Indian Ordnance Factories in late 2016 and throughout 2017.[7] Components were produced under these contracts and supplied to the Ammunition Factory Khadki and Ordnance Factory Chandrapur, both in Maharashtra state.[8] Orders indicated that production may have continued under into 2018.[9] In September 2018, Indian military officials confirmed to the Monitor that production of completed mines remains under the Indian Ordnance Factories, a state enterprise.[10]

Previously, during 2010 and into 2011, the Indian Ordnance Factory Board produced M14 and M16 antipersonnel mines. The quantities produced are not known.[11] In 2007–2008, India produced at least five types of mines, including two types of antipersonnel mines (AP NM-14 and AP NM-16) and two types of antivehicle mines (AT ND 1A and AT ND 4D), as well as the APER 1B mine (a type unknown to the Monitor).[12]

In October 2017, India reaffirmed that it has had a formal export moratorium of unlimited duration in place since May 1996.[13] It has previously stated that it favors an outright ban on the transfer of antipersonnel mines even to States Parties of CCW Amended Protocol II.[14] However, in June 2018, a private Indian arms manufacturer advertised a “bounding mine with fuze” in its sales catalogue at the Eurosatory military trade event in Paris. On the second day of the event, Eurosatory organizers ordered the display booth of the Indian company closed, and removed their entry at the event from the online catalogue.[15] Previously in February 2017, the same Indian arms manufacturer had components for bounding fragmentation antipersonnel landmines listed within their sales catalogue on display at the IDEX military trade event in Abu Dhabi.[16] Five Mine Ban Treaty States Parties have reported Indian-made mines in their stockpiles: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Mauritius, Sudan, and Tanzania. India has previously denied that any transfer of mines to these countries took place.[17]

In 1999, the Monitor estimated that India stockpiled between four and five million antipersonnel mines, one of the world’s largest stockpiles.[18] India has neither confirmed nor denied this estimate. In March 2008, Brigadier Vijay Sharma, former Deputy Director of the Directorate of Military Operations, stated that India does not possess mines that can detonate in the presence of mine detectors and does not possess—nor is it designing—any mine with antihandling characteristics.[19] However, Indian Ordnance Factory produces a non-detectable antivehicle mine with an “anti-removal” fuze.[20] An address by a military commander to army sappers (engineers), reported by the press in September 2010, stated, “After India became a signatory to a UN convention on landmine [sic], we are compulsorily putting a steel rod measuring a few inches in each mine so that it can be detected during demining operations.”[21]

Use

Government

India’s last major use of antipersonnel mines took place between December 2001 and July 2002, when the Indian Army deployed an estimated two million mines along its northern and western border with Pakistan in Operation Parakram.[22] This was probably the most extensive use of antipersonnel mines anywhere in the world since the Mine Ban Treaty was negotiated and first signed in 1997.

In April 2010, in response to a Right to Information Act (RTI) request, India stated that the army had not laid any mines during 2008 or 2009.[23] Officials did not respond to a later RTI request. Indian officials have also previously stated on many occasions that “There is no minefield or mined area in any part of India’s interiors” but have acknowledged that “minefields are laid, if required, along the border areas as part of military operations.”[24] However, in previous years, injuries from mines planted near military bases within Jammu and Kashmir state were reported.[25] Deaths and injuries by both military personnel and civilians near the Line of Control (LoC) are reported regularly by the press.[26]

Some Indian Army officials have said that infiltration of Kashmiri militants across the LoC between Pakistani- and Indian-administered sections of Kashmir is the main rationale for mines laid along the LoC, as well as the international border.[27] The Monitor has previously reported mine use in counter-insurgency operations in Kashmir.[28] Civilians continued to be killed and injured by mines in Kashmir in 2017 and early 2018 (see Casualties section).[29]

Non-state armed groups

In January 2018, a wild elephant was injured by a landmine in the Latehar district, Jharkhand state, allegedly laid by Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-M).[30] Previously, in September 2017, an elephant was killed after it stepped on a landmine also attributed to the CPI-M in the same area of Jharkhand state.[31] In July 2017, the Deputy Inspector General of Police in Chhatisgarh state informed the state news agency that “Pressure IEDs [improvised explosive devices] planted randomly inside the forests in unpredictable places, where frequent de-mining operations are not feasible, remain a challenge.”[32] The use of these victim-activated improvised mines was attributed by the police to the CPI-M and its armed wing, the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army.[33] In May 2017, India’s Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) recovered a cache of 53 landmines, with 500 grams of explosive, in Jharkhand state. In December 2016, the CRPF recovered a cache of 120 landmines, with between 800–1,000 grams of explosive, also in Jharkhand state.[34]

Previous Landmine Monitor reports have documented widespread use by the CPI-M of command-detonated IEDs.[35] These were frequently reported as “landmines” in the media and specialized reports on the conflict, but it has not always been possible to determine the mechanism of explosive devices from news reports.[36] Indian authorities regularly report to have discovered explosive material from armed groups.[37] Maoist cadres have deployed large numbers of command-detonated roadside bombs, some of which have caused civilian deaths.[38]

In June 2018, a cache of landmines, believed to have been hidden by the former LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) of Sri Lanka, was found during a construction project in Tamil Nadu.[39]

In a previous response to an RTI request by the Landmine Monitor regarding landmine use by non-state armed groups (NSAGs), a Ministry of Home Affairs official, referring to the NSAG Naxal, wrote, “The naxal affected area are prone to IEDs planted by naxal operation.” He further noted that “detection and disposal of IEDs is carried out by the state police/Central Armed Police Forces allotted to the affected states. Army units have not been tasked to deal with Naxal-related problem.”[40]

In 2016 and 2017, there were no allegations of landmine use by insurgents in the northeastern states of India or in Jammu & Kashmir state. No NSAGs have declared a ban on mine use in recent years.[41]