Warfare school gutted in fire

The Indian Army's elite High-Altitude Warfare School (HAWS) at Gulmarg in Jammu and Kashmir was destroyed in a mysterious fire on Sunday.

Sources said that important gear and sophisticated equipment worth crores was feared to have been destroyed in the blaze.

The main building of HAWS was completely gutted in the fire whose cause is yet to be ascertained.

The school is one of the Army 's most high profile training institutes in the country where troops are imparted survival training courses in extremely inhospitable environs like those on the Siachen glacier.

For its efficient training standards, HAWS is regarded as one of the best institutes of its kind in the world and unparalleled in the subcontinent.

It is because of the high level training given at the school to officers and soldiers that the Indian Army has been able to firmly hold on to Siachen , the world's highest and coldest battleground.

Earlier this year, a team of US commandos participated in a high altitude warfare course at the Ladakh campus of HAWS. At the end of that course, the leader of the US team had said HAWS was comparable to the best army training institutes in the world.

HAWS was shifted to Gulmarg in north Kashmir from Pahalgam in the southern part of the state in the early 1990s after an armed separatist movement began in the Kashmir Valley.

Srinagar, December 28, 2003 (IANS)