Army chief Gen Manoj Pande concerned over Rajouri-Poonch attacks
Army is enhancing deployments, reorienting units and strengthening its intelligence network in the Poonch-Rajouri region that has seen scaling up of terror activities, Army chief Gen Manoj Pande has said. Relentless operations will be carried out till the area returns to normal, he said.
Reiterating that there will be zero-tolerance for human rights violations, the Army chief said that follow-up action is being taken on the alleged killing of civilians in custody and the impacted village has been adopted by the Army for the welfare of locals.
«Strengthening of the human intelligence network, outreach to locals and strengthening our ability to get technical intelligence in terms of communication is something we are working on.
We have enhanced our deployments in the area and have reoriented some units that have been operating there,» Gen Pande said ahead of Army Day.
The Army chief pointed out that violence in Jammu and Kashmir has decreased but incidents of terrorist attacks have gone up in Poonch-Rajouri, terming it as a matter of concern and pointed to support from Pakistan.
«After 2003, terrorism in that area was fully dismantled and we had peace and stability there till about 2017-18. Because of the situation getting normal in the valley, this is one area where our adversaries have been active in terms of abetting terror and encouraging proxy tanzeems,» he said, adding that tactical level lessons are being drawn from each operation and are getting incorporated in the counterterror strategy.
He described the China border situation stable but sensitive and said that border infrastructure projects have been prioritised.
