Army Chief General Bipin Rawat has warned Kashmiri youths against picking up guns, saying “Azadi will not happen, you cannot fight the army".
In an interview to The Indian Express Chief of Army Staff General Bipin Rawat said, "Kashmiri youths must not be carried away unnecessarily and understand that Azadi will not happen, you cannot fight the Army. This is a dictum Kashmiri youth need to know".
“We don’t enjoy it. But if you want to fight us, then we will fight you with all our force. Kashmiris have to understand that the SFs (security forces) haven’t been so brutal — look at Syria and Pakistan. They use tanks and air power in similar situations. Our troops have been trying their level best to avoid any civilian casualty despite huge provocation,’’ he said. “I know that the youth are angry. But attacking security forces, throwing stones at us isn’t the way", The Indian Express quoted Army chief as saying.
Army has been performing Counter Insurgency operations in Kashmir for past 27 years.
"The army has been in the counter-insurgency role in J&K for such a long time that it has developed a stake or, crudely put, a vested interest in it." says Pravin Sawhney and Ghazala Wahab in their book Dragon On Our Doorstep.
The book says, "an entire generation of army officers, now in the ranks of generals, has known nothing but CI operations in Kashmir." "Their gallantry awards, perks, promotions and personal tales of heroism all come from Kashmir."
General Rawat’s comments came days after Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti urged that the Centre should consider a unilateral ceasefire in Jammu and Kashmir starting from Ramzan in mid-May till the completion of the Amarnath yatra in August. An all-party meeting was also held yesterday after a tourist from Chennai was killed in stone throwing on May 7.
Reports suggest that the stone-pelters were protesting against the killing of five Hizbul Mujahideen terrorists in an encounter in Shopian on Sunday.
Stone-throwing has spread far and wide, to villages and towns across the Valley and also the Muslim-majority Chenab valley of Jammu. It intensified after the 2008 agitation over transfer of forest land to the Amarnath shrine board and later during the 2010 agitation. It flared up again after Hizbul’s Burhan Wani’s killing.
