Indian army under fire for putting soldiers at risk in clearing mines

The Comptroller and Auditor General watchdog said the manual demining was a result of the army's failure to import hardware in good time after the 20-month military standoff.

"The delay in getting robotic equipment to defuse over one million landmines laid along the western front had led the army to clear substantial landmines manually, with a high degree of risk to human life," the federal watchdog said in a report.

Dozens of soldiers were killed and hundreds more maimed while clearing mines laid across vast swathes of land from disputed Kashmir to the northern Indian states of Punjab and Rajasthan.