New Delhi, May 10 (TNS): In a controversial statement Indian Army chief General Bipin Rawat said the youth in Kashmir must not get \u201ccarried away unnecessarily\u201d and understand \u201cAzadi\u201d is not possible as the security forces will always fight those who want to secede, Indian media\u00a0reported on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Gen Rawat told the Indian Express in an interview that he was concerned that the youth in the strife-torn state are picking up guns and \u201cthose who tell them (that) this path will bring azadi \u2026 misleading them\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese numbers of militants [freedom fighters] who are killed in gunbattles with the army don\u2019t matter to me because I know this cycle will continue. There are fresh recruitments happening. I only want to stress that all this is futile, nothing is going to be achieved by them. You can\u2019t fight the army,\u201d Gen Rawat said.<\/p>\n
He added that the security forces \u201cdon\u2019t enjoy\u201d killing but if anyone wants to \u201cfight us then we will fight you with all our force\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know that the youth are angry. But attacking security forces, throwing stones at us isn\u2019t the way,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He also expressed concern over people flocking to sites of gunbattles and \u201cinciting security forces by pelting stones at them to disrupt the operations \u2026 They are inciting security forces to become more aggressive.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t understand why people are coming out in huge numbers to disrupt our operations. Who is inciting them? If they want that the militants aren\u2019t killed, they should go and tell them to come out without their weapons so that nobody is killed … We will halt our operation. We can\u2019t allow people to disrupt our operations and help terrorists to flee,\u201d he told the Indian Express.<\/p>\n
The general said the army, which has been criticised for using extreme force in the state, \u201cdid try a soft approach too\u201d and pointed out to the violence in 2016 after Hizbul Mujahideen\u2019s Burhan Wani was killed in a gunfight with security forces.<\/p>\n
\u201c… Until June 2016, everything was fine. What is that incited people so much because of that one encounter? Everything was turned upside down in a few days\u2019 time. The entire South Kashmir was out in the streets, throwing stones at us, attacking our posts,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He said he was getting messages that people in the state were saying \u201cazadi dur nahi hai (azadi isn\u2019t far away)\u201d by October-November that year.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomebody was feeding this to people, telling them Azadi was around the corner. Our posts were being regularly attacked. Stones were being pelted at our men … We had to bring the situation under control. We couldn\u2019t afford all that. We needed to tell people Azadi isn\u2019t happening. We had to establish the writ (of the state)\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201c(The Burhan Wani encounter) wasn\u2019t the first such encounter in Kashmir … I am still trying to understand where did all that anger come from. The youth have gotten themselves in Pakistan\u2019s trap. They are being consistently incited to attack us,\u2019\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n
Gen Rawat said he understands that \u201cthere isn\u2019t a military solution to this issue\u201d and wants politicians and political representatives to talk to people, especially in south Kashmir.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut they are scared that they will be attacked. It will happen once there is calm. And we are hopeful that people will soon realise that all this is futile and start thinking differently,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Indian army chief said he is \u201cready to suspend\u201d military operations to avoid civilian casualties.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut who will guarantee that there won\u2019t be fire at our men, at our vehicles? Who will guarantee that policemen, political workers, our men returning home on leave aren\u2019t attacked, aren\u2019t killed?\u2019\u2019 he asked.<\/p>\n
He added that youngsters, who have picked up guns, and terrorists aren\u2019t a big challenge for the army and that the army has repeatedly asked people not to come to disrupt their operations and throw stones at security personnel.<\/p>\n
\u201cRecently, we left an operation unfinished at one place. We withdrew our men so that the situation doesn\u2019t turn bad. But as we left, our men came under fire from another house at a different place. A JCO (Junior Commissioned Officer) was injured. He is still in hospital,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
General Rawat said he recently tried to reach out but nobody came forward to reciprocate.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I spoke (on April 15), that very evening we were attacked. People have to reciprocate so that we can move forward,\u2019\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYoung people are getting excited by IS flags. Do you know what that means? Do you want to Talibanise Kashmir? Do you want Kashmir to turn into such a society? Do you want to live in such a society? These young people do not understand the meaning of it all. Somebody is inciting these young people\u201d.<\/p>\n
Gen Rawat said that the people in Kashmir must understand the turmoil is taking a toll on the development of the state and that tourism has been adversely affected.<\/p>\n
Courtesy: Indian Express\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" New Delhi, May 10 (TNS): In a controversial statement Indian Army chief General Bipin Rawat said the youth in Kashmir must not get \u201ccarried away unnecessarily\u201d and understand \u201cAzadi\u201d is not possible as the security forces will always fight those who want to secede, Indian media\u00a0reported on Thursday. Gen Rawat told the Indian Express in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":64614,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=64613"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64616,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64613\/revisions\/64616"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/64614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=64613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=64613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=64613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}