Defence minister AK Antony (left) at a Siachen post. File picture

New Delhi, Sept. 18: The Indian Army’s publicised escorting of civilian adventure tourists to Siachen has stirred a row but a quiet exercise with British Marines since yesterday — also in Siachen — has gone almost unnoticed.

The first group of Indian civilian tourists to Siachen will leave for Leh tomorrow, defence ministry spokesperson Sitanshu Kar said today, scotching speculation that the army has been asked to call it off because of protests by the Pakistani government.

Islamabad had reacted sharply, calling the Indian deputy high commissioner to its foreign ministry and issuing a demarche, after the army announced last week that it would escort a trek team to the 16,000-foot-high Kumar Post.

All of this is happening even as the India-UK “Exercise Himalayan Warrior” is on.

Officially, the venue of the exercise is not Siachen but Ladakh, not an incorrect description, but a little like saying there is a steel plant in Bengal, instead of being more specific and naming Durgapur.

The companies from the Indian and British forces would be based for much of their four-week war games in an establishment not far from the Siachen Glacier Base Camp.

During the exercise, two companies of the UK Marines and Indian paratroopers battle-hardened in Siachen will be moving back and forth from the glacier.

“We cannot say the British troops are based in Siachen,” a senior army officer in headquarters told The Telegraph. “But yes, there are elements of the Siachen experience in Exercise Himalayan Warrior because the objective of the exercise is to train in super-high altitude areas.”

The army will not officially admit to taking and hosting foreign troops in Siachen because that may snowball into a diplomatic and political issue.

Speculation that the trek may be called off gained ground after army sources first said the trek was being deferred for “administrative reasons”. The 20 tourists, some of them from Mumbai, were to leave for Delhi last evening but were asked to hold on.

Apparently, the army was not sure about the schedule of two glacier experts who were to help in training the toruists in Leh during an 11-day acclimatisation period.

“There is no move to call it off. The trek is taking place in an area which is ours,” defence ministry spokesperson Kar said.

Last evening, the foreign ministry was less certain but the army did not foresee a hitch.

The trek is not a military hazard, with a ceasefire in effect since Diwali 2002. But the tourists would have to overcome altitude-related physiological challenges.

Defence ministry sources said the team from the National Cadet Corps and the Indian Military Academy would be acclimatised in Leh, which is a normal procedure.

The team will also go through a four-day crash course in ice-craft at the Siachen Battle School in the Siachen Glacier Base Camp.

The 12km trek will take four days, with four staging camps in which they will rest and recuperate. This is the route taken frequently by troops.