The Indian army chief General Bipin Rawat, in a message to Kashmiri youth, has said that Azadi [freedom] is not possible as \u201cwe will always fight those who seek Azadi\u201d, a media report said today.<\/i>
\nRawat said the forces haven\u2019t been \u201cso brutal\u201d and asked the Kashmiri youth to look at Syria and Pakistan and see \u201chow they are using tanks and air power in similar situations,\u201d reported Indian Express.<\/i><\/p>\n
Gen Rawat, according to the report, expressed concern over Kashmiri youth \u201cpicking up the gun\u201d and said they were being misled to believe \u201cthis path will bring Azadi\u201d.<\/i>
\n\u201cI want to tell Kashmiri youth that Azadi isn\u2019t possible. It won\u2019t happen. Don\u2019t get carried away unnecessarily. Why are you picking up weapons? We will always fight those who seek Azadi, those who want to secede. (Azadi) is not going to happen, never,\u201d he said.<\/i>
\nOn the number of militants being killed in the gunfights, he said: \u201cThese numbers 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.<\/i>
\nGen Rawat said that he is perturbed by the killings. \u201cWe don\u2019t 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\u2019t been so brutal \u2014 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,\u2019\u2019 he said. <\/i>
\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,\u2019\u2019 he said. \u201cLet anyone of them say \u2014 mein le kay aata hun (I will bring him out). We will halt our operation.\u201d<\/i>
\nHe said that the youth by pelting them with stones are \u201cinciting security forces to become more aggressive.\u201d<\/i>
\nGeneral Rawat said that he understands that \u201cthere isn\u2019t a military solution to this issue\u201d. \u201cThis is why we want politicians, political representatives to go into villages especially in South Kashmir to talk to people. But they are scared that they will be attacked,\u2019\u2019 he said. \u201cIt will happen once there is calm. And we are hopeful that people will soon realize that all this is futile and start thinking differently\u201d.<\/i>
\nThe Army chief said he is \u201cready to suspend\u201d military operations to avoid civilian casualties. \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.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rawat said the forces haven\u2019t been \u201cso brutal\u201d and asked the Kashmiri youth to look at Syria and Pakistan and see \u201chow they are using tanks and air power in similar situations,\u201d reported Indian Express. The Indian army chief General Bipin Rawat, in a message to Kashmiri youth, has said that Azadi [freedom] is not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11947,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-union-territory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}