Policy

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

In November 2020, India repeated at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) First Committee that it “supports the vision of a world free of anti-personnel mines.” India noted that it regularly participates at meetings of States Parties.[1] India also reiterated its long-held position that 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 that the “availability of militarily effective and alternative technologies that can perform cost-effectively the legitimate defensive role of anti-personnel landmines will considerably facilitate the goal of the complete elimination of anti-personnel mines.”[2]

India attended, as an observer, the Mine Ban Treaty’s Eighteenth Meeting of States Parties, held virtually in November 2020. Its statement to the meeting included the same points delivered at the First Committee meetings of the UNGA, and is virtually identical to statements made at previous meetings of States Parties.[3]

On 7 December 2020, India abstained from voting on UNGA Resolution 75/52, which called for universalization and full implementation of the Mine Ban Treaty. India has abstained from voting on the annual UNGA resolution promoting the treaty since it was first introduced in 1997.

After a bilateral meeting with the delegate of India to the Sixteenth Meeting of States Parties in Vienna in December 2017, 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 that India consider undertaking a comprehensive policy review, with both military and civil input, on its use of antipersonnel landmines.[4] In February 2018, much of the material and suggestions within the note verbale were published by the Indian media.[5] In April 2018, a major newspaper in Jammu and Kashmir called on both India and Pakistan to join the Mine Ban Treaty.[6] On the International Day of Mine Awareness in April 2020, a landmine survivor and Program Coordinator for the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society, an ICBL member organization, drew attention to the lack of action to address the threat posed by mines along 734km of the Line of Control (LoC) and the need for India to sign the Mine Ban Treaty.[7]

India is a party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW), its Amended Protocol II on landmines, and Protocol V on explosive remnants of war (ERW). India 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 has previously stated that all production is authorized and controlled by government agencies.[8] On 9 August 2020, India announced that a ban on the import of fragmentation and blast antipersonnel landmines will take effect in December 2021. The ban is for the stated purpose of increasing domestic production.[9] The Ordnance Factory Board is reported to have sent out a tender to local manufacturers for one million M-14 landmines to be delivered at a rate of 200,000 per year.[10] Production of antipersonnel mines appeared to have been ongoing in India between 2016–2021. Tender records, retrieved from a publicly accessible online government procurement database, list tenders for components of M-16, M-14, and APER-1B antipersonnel mines to Indian Ordnance Factories.[11] Components have been produced under these contracts and supplied to Ammunition Factory Khadki, and Ordnance Factory Chandrapur, both in Maharashtra state; and also to Ordnance Factory Dum Dum, in West Bengal.[12] Tenders indicated that production continued during 2020 and 2021.[13] In September 2018, Indian military officials confirmed to the Monitor that production of completed landmines remains under Indian Ordnance Factories, a state enterprise.[14]

Previously, in 2010 and into 2011, the Indian Ordnance Factory Board produced M14 and M16 antipersonnel mines. The quantities produced are not known.[15] 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 mine type unknown to the Monitor).[16]

In November 2020, India reaffirmed its commitment to a moratorium on the export and transfer of antipersonnel mines, which has been in place since May 1996.[17] India has previously stated that it favors an outright ban on the transfer of antipersonnel landmines, even to States Parties of CCW Amended Protocol II.[18] Five Mine Ban Treaty States Parties have reported Indian-made landmines in their stockpiles: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Mauritius, Sudan, and Tanzania. India has previously denied that any transfer of mines to these countries took place.[19]

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 to close, and removed their entry at the event from the online catalogue.[20] Previously, in February 2017, the same Indian arms manufacturer had components for bounding fragmentation antipersonnel landmines listed within its sales catalogue on display at the International Defence Exhibition (IDEX) military trade event in Abu Dhabi.[21]

In 1999, the Monitor estimated that India stockpiled between four and five million antipersonnel mines; one of the world’s largest stockpiles.[22] 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.[23] However, Indian Ordnance Factory produces a non-detectable antivehicle mine with an “anti-removal” fuze.[24] An address by a military commander to army 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.”[25]

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 landmines along its northern and western borders with Pakistan, in Operation Parakram.[26]

In April 2010, in response to a Right to Information Act request, India stated that the army had not laid any mines during 2008 or 2009.[27] Officials did not respond to a later Right to Information Act 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.”[28] However, in previous years, injuries from mines planted near military bases within Jammu and Kashmir state were reported.[29] In December 2018, the National Herald documented monthly casualties along the Line of Control (LoC) with Pakistan. These casualties were primarily Indian Army soldiers, but also porters employed by the army, as well as civilians.[30] Military casualties along the LoC continue to occur.[31]

Some Indian Army officials have stated that the infiltration of Kashmiri militants across the LoC between Pakistani- and Indian-administered sections of Kashmir is the main rationale for mines being laid along the LoC, as well as on the international border.[32] However, there have been no official reports of militants being killed or injured by landmines along the LoC in recent years. The Monitor has previously reported mine use in counter-insurgency operations in Kashmir.[33] Civilians continued to be killed and injured by mines in Kashmir in 2020 and 2021. Open conflict between India and China over disputed territory in Kashmir resulted in at least one death and one injury in August 2020 due to mines laid in the area in the past.[34]

Non-state armed groups

New use of improvised antipersonnel landmines, attributed to non-state armed groups (NSAGs) affiliated with the Maoist insurgency in India, has been reported sporadically since 2017.

In early 2021, in both Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand states, in multiple incidents, villagers and police personnel were killed or injured by improvised antipersonnel landmines while gathering forest products. The incidents were attributed by officials to pressure-plate activated improvised mines laid by the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-M) or its People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA).[35] In July 2021, in Jharkhand, a villager taken by the armed forces to guide them in the jungle died after stepping on a mine attributed to the CPI-M.[36] In August 2020, two Adivasis (tribal people) were killed after they stepped on a landmine laid by the PLGA/CPI-M in Visakhapatnam district, Andhra Pradesh state.[37] The CPI-M admitted responsibility for the incident to the family and through an audio press note to the village where it occurred, claiming they had laid the booby-trap for pursuing police forces.[38] In December 2019, a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) officer was injured when he stepped on a landmine allegedly laid by the CPI-M near Lohardaga in Jharkhand state. In the same area the previous day a girl was killed by a mine and five people were injured, while visiting a waterfall.[39] In August 2019, in Kanker, Chhattisgarh state, a villager herding cattle died after stepping on a mine allegedly laid by the CPM-I.[40] Mine use attributed to the CPM-I in Indian media reports is routinely linked to the ongoing conflict with security forces.

Previously, in January 2018, a wild elephant was injured by a mine in Latehar district, Jharkhand state, allegedly laid by the CPI-M.[41] In September 2017, an elephant was killed after it stepped on a landmine also attributed to the CPI-M in the same area.[42] In July 2017, the Deputy Inspector General of Police in Chhattisgarh 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.”[43] The use of these victim-activated improvised mines was attributed by police to the CPI-M and its armed wing, the PLGA.[44] The Monitor has previously noted widespread use by the CPI-M of command-detonated improvised explosive devices (IEDs).[45] These were frequently referred to as “landmines” in local media reports, but it has not always been possible to determine the technical characteristics of the devices from news reports.[46] Some instances of use of improvised antivehicle mines, resulting in civilian casualties, have also been reported.[47]

In June 2018, a cache of landmines, believed to have been hidden by the former Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) of Sri Lanka, was found during a construction project in Tamil Nadu.[48]

There have been no allegations of landmine use by insurgents in India’s northeastern states, or in Jammu and Kashmir state, in recent years. However, no NSAGs have declared a ban on landmine use in the past decade.[49]