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International Border
PAKISTAN Kutch
Sardar Post Bair Bet Kanjarkot
Mandvi
India
From the head of the Gulf of Kutch stretches a dry bed of the sea that once surrounded Kutch. The Rann of Kutch is a salt waste, separating Sind from Kutch in the north, and Radhanpur and Kathiawar from the east and the south. A broad, bare expanse of land, the Rann of Kutch forms the southern boundary of Sind from the south-western border of Rajasthan to the sea. During the monsoons, the swelling waters of the sea invade the Rann, turning it into a wide, salty lake stretching to the borders of Rajasthan. It is this large salt desert with which this history is concerned. Geopolitically speaking, the area had always been a sore point between Sind and Kutch, even before Partition. Like most political bones of contention, this was a problem to which no real solution could be found. As a result, after Partition, the area was divided based on religion. Sind, by virtue of its Muslim majority, was handed to Pakistan, while the dominantly Hindu Kutch region remained with India. However, diplomatic haggling over the Rann of Kutch continued.
8 Frontier Force was moved to Khadan on 6 March, to reinforce the posts at Rahim-ki-Bazar and
Kanjarkot
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I
3,500
men of the 51st Infantry Brigade of the Pakistan Army launched a simultaneous assault on the Sardar and Tak Posts
MAP NOT TO SCALE
Indian troops during a period of armed conflict with Pakistan Getty Images
n 1964, the first signs of trouble surfaced at Kanjarkot, where the Pakistanis had frequently been trespassing into Indian territory. Kanjarkot essentially comprised a fort in ruins, close to the Pakistani border. It was surrounded by a flat plain to the south and an undulating bank of sand dunes to the north. The dunes dominated the area immediately surrounding the fort, and provided the Pakistanis a clear view of Indian territory. What was more, communications in the area also favoured the Pakistanis more than the Indians.1 The Indian administrative base at Bhuj was 177 kms south of the border while the advance maintenance area being established at Khavda was about 104 kms from the border and 119 kms from Vigokot. The Bhuj-Khavda road was susceptible to breaches during the monsoon, and though there was a fair-weather landing-strip at Khavda 1 B.C. Chakravorty, History of the Indo-Pak War 1965, published by the History Division, Ministry of Defence, Government of India, New Delhi, 1992, p. 19