Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Bipin Rawat has emphasised on the need for deradicalisation camps in Kashmir for children who had been radicalised. He made the remark while addressing the Raisina Dialogue, a conclave of global affairs being hosted by the Observer Research Foundation (ORF). He also denied that the Indian Army was being heavy-handed in its approach and used pellet guns only sparingly.
The General said, “Radicalisation can be countered. We saw it happening in Kashmir… Today, we see that young children are also being radicalised. They need to be identified and then we need to put them in de-radicalisation camps. The Indian army has not been using hard tactics… Pellet guns are a non-lethal practice. It is sparingly used.”
General Bipin Rawat also brought some realism into the debate around stopping terrorism. He said, “Terrorism is here to stay so long as there are going to be states that are going to sponsor terrorism and they are going to use terrorists as proxies, make weapons available to them, make funding for them, then we can’t control terrorism.”
The CDS also observed that there was a need to isolate state sponsors of terror. “Any country which is sponsoring terrorism has to be taken to task. I feel one of the measures adopted is of blacklisting by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is one good measure. Diplomatic isolation, you have to do this,” he said.
