Jammu: General Officer Commanding (GOC) White Knight Corps (16 Corps) Lieutenant General Manjinder Singh on Wednesday stated that the army was aligned with the government’s agenda to get the J&K youth into the mainstream to fail the designs of “enemy.”
He said that their anti-filtration grid was very effective and there was no successful bid in the last two years along the Line of Control (LoC) in their (White Knight Corps’) area.
He was addressing the media on the sidelines of a function organised in connection with the Golden Jubilee celebrations of the White Knight Corps here at Nagrota.
Asserting that the terror recruitments were more valley-centric, Lt Gen Manjinder Singh also batted for a “whole of nation” policy to save J&K youth from getting astray and radicalised.
He said that the agenda of the government was to get the youth into the mainstream and the army was aligned with it as it would take the youth on the path of development and peace and would fail the “enemy in its agenda.” He stated that the “enemy country” was using the process of radicalisation to “dislodge youth from the right path and take them on the wrong path.”
“To save them we need a whole of nation approach which involves family, entire society, religious leaders and teachers. Army is helping them. We take educational, sports and cultural initiatives to channelize the energy of youth in right direction. Besides, we identify hostile profiles and do counselling also in collaboration with the police. The radicalised youth are booked as Over Ground Workers of terrorist organisations,” GOC 16 Corps said.
Responding to questions related to prospects of increase in infiltration attempts along the LoC before the onset of winters and challenges being confronted by the army, Lt Gen Singh said that though the terrorists and their mentors across the border continued their efforts for infiltration to project J&K as the “disturbed area” and also to show that the terrorism was not restricted to Kashmir only.
“Yet there had been no successful infiltration bid in the last two years in our area. So far, the violence in Jammu is significantly low. Our anti-infiltration grid is very effective so we will ensure that there is no infiltration in our area. Another good thing is that there is no support for them from the local population here. Similarly we have a strong counter-terrorism grid in the hinterland areas to ensure that the terrorists, who come from Kashmir side, are killed,” he said.
GOC White Knight Corps said that during the past few days there was a slight decline in infiltration attempts due to certain factors directly related to the current situation in Pakistan, which was also confronting floods.
He stated that a large number of terrorist groups had sent their cadre to Balochistan and Sindh to help flood affected people besides FATF (Financial Action Task Force) pressure and ongoing UN General Assembly session too were the reasons behind it (less infiltration attempts).