Policy

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

In November 2018, 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 since 2004 is a demonstration of our support towards this goal.”[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 in Maputo in September 2014. India sent an observer to the Mine Ban Treaty Seventeenth Meeting of States Parties in Geneva in December 2018, but did not attend the intersessional meetings in June 2019.

On 15 December 2018, India abstained from voting on United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution 73/61 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.[3] In February 2018, much of the material and suggestions within the Note Verbale were published in the Indian media.[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. It is not party to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

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 and 2019. 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.[7] Components were produced under these contracts and supplied to the Ammunition Factory Khadki and Ordnance Factory Chandrapur, both in Maharashtra state, and Ordnance Factory Dum Dum in West Bengal.[8] Orders indicated that production may have continued into 2019.[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 November 2018, India reaffirmed its commitment to a moratorium on export and transfer of anti-personnel mines that has been 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]

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] In December 2018, the National Herald documented monthly casualties along the Line of Control (LoC) with Pakistan, primarily Indian Army soldiers, but also porters employed by the army and civilians.[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 2018. (See Casualties section).[29]

Non-state armed groups

In the first half of 2019, there were multiple reports of the use of landmines and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) by non-state armed groups. Maoist insurgent groups as well as alleged cross-border terrorist groups within Pakistan were attributed to the attacks, many of which resulted in civilian and military casualties. The attacks were reported in the border region of Jammu and Kashmir, as well as in the states of Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh.[30]

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).[31] 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.[32] In July 2017, the Deputy Inspector General of Police in Chhatisgarh state informed the state news agency that “Pressure IEDs planted randomly inside the forests in unpredictable places, where frequent de-mining operations are not feasible, remain a challenge.”[33] 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.[34] 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.[35]

Previous Landmine Monitor reports have documented widespread use by the CPI-M of command-detonated IEDs.[36] 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.[37]

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.[38]

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.”[39]

In 2018 and early 2019, 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.[40]