Acknowledging concerns about the situation in the Rajouri-Poonch sector of Jammu and Kashmir over the last five to six months, as well as the high attrition rate among Army personnel, the Chief of Army Staff General Manoj Pande said on Thursday that local support was crucial. The Army is engaging with the local community there, he said, emphasising that there will be “zero tolerance” for human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir.
On the Agnipath scheme, he reiterated that its final framework came about “after an iterative process, after consultations, and it took into account whatever issues we had to put across”.
The Army chief outlined the problem in the Rajouri-Poonch sector, in response to a question from The Hindu at the annual press conference ahead of Army Day. “If we look at the entire Jammu and Kashmir, in terms of the number of terrorists neutralised in the entire State in 2023, it is is 71, of which 51 are in the [Kashmir] valley and 21 in the Rajouri-Poonch region. Our own casualties in Kashmir have been seven; in Rajouri-Poonch, it has been 20. The figures, especially in Rajouri-Poonch, is something we have taken note of,” Gen. Pande said.
