It's not the first time the Horizon Group, founded by Maj General (retd) Shashikant Pitre, comprising ex-servicemen are on landmine deactivating mission in Sri Lanka. They have been doing it since 2003, but the current projects has a new edge, as, for the first time, the Indian government has given the group two projects of Rs 2.62 crore each to clear the mines. All their funding so far for the deactivation had been from the Royal Norwegian government.

"But after the LTTE was flushed out, the government has taken up rehabilitation on priority and recognised that clearing landmines is an important prerequisite to the rehabilitation process in Sri Lanka,” said Pitre.

Horizon was the first enterprise in India to be involved in this kind of “humanitarian demining” work when it started in 2002. Later, Gurgaon-based Sarvatra also joined the league. Sarvatra too has dispatched 32 men to Sri Lanka who will work along with Horizon personnel on the projects.

“Besides our 50 ex-servicemen, we have recruited 50 locals for the task ahead,” said Pitre who was part of the IPKF in 1987. According to the retired general, the idea of forming Horizon came from a desire to do something to alleviate the sufferings of those living in combat zones. Specialising in post-conflict environment management, the company has seven ex-army officers as directors and a network of retired officers, JCOs and jawans across the country, who are taken on contract for projects. “Most of these ex-servicemen are from the Corp of Engineers and thus are already equipped with basic technical knowledge of demining,” said Pitre, a former Corps man himself.

The big break for the officer and his organization came in 2003 when he was asked to begin work in Sri Lanka in places like Mannar, Vavuniya, and Trincomalee. “Since then we have defused some 9,000 mines and 1,000 unexploded ammunition and cleared over 50 square-km of mines in Sri Lanka. The Norwegian government has given us about half a million dollars till now for the task,” said Pitre adding that a host of other international organisations from countries like the US, Denmark and UK are also involved in the task that under the supervision of the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS).

According to Brigaidier (retd) Anil Apte, one of the directors in Pune, the ex-servicemen taken on are given four weeks of training at their facility near Talaegaon before they are sent for the task. “We use the manual demining method and in the past six years not a single casualty has been reported during this exercise,” he added.