By Aamer Ahmed Khan BBC News, Karachi

"Those destined to die in the quake have died and there's nothing anyone can do about it," says a senior military officer involved in the relief effort in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

Official information has to come from the army's PR wing

"But let me assure you that not a single survivor is now likely to die of cold or hunger," he says.

His views are in sharp contrast to those being aired by various NGOs and private relief workers.

Across the high altitude quake-hit areas, relief agencies have warned of a "second wave" of deaths amid plummeting temperatures.

But army officials remain confident that no such threat exists.

'Best informed'

Caught between conflicting perceptions, private donors and philanthropists are finding it increasingly difficult to decide what they can do in a situation that desperately needs their help.

Clearly, the right kind of information can go a long way in putting the controversy at rest and helping ease the conditions for the victims.

And given that the relief effort has involved hundreds of local and international relief agencies besides the media, there could not possibly be any dearth of information on local conditions.

Why, then, is it proving to be so elusive?

The army's maps of the quake-hit zone are the most detailed available

The problem, it seems, rests with the character and training of the Pakistan army - an institution which the global relief regime now recognises as the best informed outfit on local conditions in all the quake-hit areas.

The army's issue with disseminating accurate information on the ground situation arises primarily from its dual role - being a governmental army and being directly responsible for providing relief to the victims.

'Quite accessible'

At times, the conflict of interest between those entrusted with dispensing relief and those securing it could not have been more acute.

"If I say the situation in some area is turning ugly, it makes my seniors sitting in the government in Islamabad look bad," confides one senior army relief official.

"But if I don't make a fuss, I don't get what I need both from the government as well as the international agencies."

On realising this bind, many relief commanders started speaking to the press directly in the first couple of weeks after the earthquake.

But the situation so alarmed those in government that they immediately banned all field commanders such direct communication with the media.

The task of media management was given solely to the army's public relations wing - the ISPR.

From that point onwards, information on the quake hit zone moved firmly in the realm of political fiction as the ISPR became totally bogged down in defending the government against what was appearing in the media.

Meanwhile, and perhaps unknown to the ISPR, field commanders kept themselves quite accessible to aid workers as well as the media - though only for what they called background briefings.

Relief workers, in particular those from international agencies, were astounded at the frankness of the field commanders at such meetings.

"Their information provided us with insights that would otherwise have taken us months to acquire," says one foreign relief worker.

He says it was primarily on the basis of information provided by the field commanders that the food crisis in the more remote areas was brought under control.

'Shrouded in mystery'

Before long, every major international agency including the World Food Programme and the ICRC found themselves working closely with the army.

[Digitising the army's detailed maps] would also avoid duplication of effort and ensure transparency in relief operations Army commander

"They came here treating us the same way as they would treat warlords or private militias in some of the African countries, for example," laughs one relief commander.

"But within a couple of weeks, they weren't willing to work with anyone but us."

Some aid workers even wrote articles in the international media urging the UN and its affiliated agencies to rethink their policy of not working directly with armies in emergency situations.

Pakistanis know that the need for shelter has now assumed urgency.

But the exact 'what and where' of this need remains shrouded in mystery.

The army's maps of the quake-hit zone are the most detailed available anywhere.

Field commanders say if these maps are digitised in relevant detail and put on the web, the entire world can follow the state of the relief efforts as they happen.

"It will create a consolidated database of the affected areas, informing the entire world of what is needed and exactly where," says one senior commander.

"It would also avoid duplication of effort and ensure transparency in relief operations.