Udhampur:15 Feb 2018
The Indian army on Wednesday said that Pulwama, Shopian and Kulgam districts in south Kashmir are no more liberated zones.
“Media something in the beginning of 2017 said that there are three places were Indian army never went in—Pulwama, Shopian and Kulgam.
Entire Indian army goes, not only Indian army, political leadership and elected members are freely moving in the areas. You said it is a liberated zone. It is not there anymore.if it is there, you can share with us,” General-Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Northern Command, Lt Gen D Anbu said while addressing a presser here.
“We reached out to the people as well as the militants. When you carry out more operations, the tempo will be more so the contact with (militants) leading to their elimination. Some people also get killed or injured in the bargain.”
“You will not find any terrorist initiated action happening.We want the situation to come under control. When you sustain the tempo for a longer period, it will come down. You cannot have a short-term solution and jump to any conclusion,” he said.
Terming the misuse of social media a ‘time bomb’ and a challenge for security agencies, he said local Kashmiri youths were being engaged via the medium from across the border on a minute-to-minute basis.
He said that this in addition to the coming together of Hizbul Mujahideen, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad (militant) groups is a matter of concern.
The army officer said social media was playing a big role in the increase of violence in the state.
“The reach of the social media is so large and as such it is a time bomb for everybody,” he said.
The Army commander, however, expressed hope that the Army would be able to reverse the trend, but said everybody – including the civil society – has a role to play in curbing the violence.
“Hizbul Mujahideen, LeT and JeM are hand in glove with each other after coming together in the later part of last year,” he said, adding, “It will be taken care of.”
Last week, militants targeted an Army camp in Sunjwan Jammu and killed six Army personnel, all from Jammu and Kashmir. On Monday, two miltants tried to attack a CRPF camp in Srinagar. After a 32-hour gunbattle, the security forces killed the attackers.
The Army commander attributed the increase in violence to the euphoria generated after the death of Hizbul commander Burhan Wani in July 2016. “The curve (of violence) will take a while to come down,” he said.
On stone-pelting incidents to hamper counter-insurgency operations, he said the mechanism to keep people away from encounter sites has paid well.
“The system worked. When the operation is a planned one the stone-pelting is being tackled by police and CRPF but when the operation is sudden the Army columns do come under stone pelting,” he said.
On the trend of local youths joining militant groups, he said it was a cause of concern for all.
“When we are looking at (militancy) as a whole per se, we look at three things – we need to stop infiltration from across the border, in the hinterland, whosoever is already there we need to eliminate them. And the third, the capability to induce the locals which is being the latest trend for the last couple of years which we need to arrest.
“If we will address all the three, you will achieve success and if anyone of them is not really paying up then you are not going to succeed as one would like. Last year, we focused on the leadership of militants and we were able to eliminate many of them,” he said.
Advocating action against overground workers, he said “not only (militants), overground workers need to be equally targeted. These two factors, if we are able to address will slowly come down the level of violence. He said the local youth joining militancy are no threat to the Army as they are not well trained and do not have weapons either.
The army commander said there was a need to reach out to people and make them understand the “futility of militancy”.
On the impact of an FIR over the killing of three youths in south Kashmir’s Shopian district last month in which Major Aditya Kumar was named, the General-Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Northern Command, said, “I am heading the Northern Command and I can say it with confidence that the issue of Major Aditya has not dented the morale of my troops, not even a bit, not even an iota.”
“I can say it with confidence because I meet them, I move around and I speak through my commanders and know the pulse,” he said.
He also claimed said that there was no human rights (HRs) violation reported against the Army last one year.
“In the last one year, you have not seen any human rights violations taking place. That is (because of the) direction from me to the commanders. You will not find any one of them wilfully indulging in it. Our intentions are clear so there is nothing to worry about,” he said.
However, he said that the case was sub-judice and would take its own course.
“The Defence minister had made a statement during her visit to Jammu that the government and the ministry of defence are totally behind the soldiers and armed forces,” he said.
In response to a question about an insiders role in the Sunjuwan attack and any plans to shift the training centre of the regiment from Srinagar, he said, “I am in a uniformed force and do not distinguish the personnel under my command. We do not work like that in the Indian Army.”
“Someone who joins us gets motivated by our ethos and functioning, even if he is not motivated before. There is no doubt in my mind and our organisation is very strong. The new recruits mould into our system,” he said
