Inability to build on gains brought Kashmir tension: Army Chief

“The Kashmir situation has been tense for quite some time and the reasons are many. The basic reason being that we have not been able to build on the gains that have been made,” said Gen Singh.

Elaborating on the steps required,he said,”First of all,there has to be concerted efforts to identify the miscreants. There are few. There are people who are passing instructions on phone. They have to be identified. There are people financing the protests. They must be identified. After that,starts how do we connect with the common man and build confidence in him so that he can stay away from all this. Now this is both an administrative measure as well as it depends on the elected leaders out there at various levels,” the Army Chief said.

“And last but not the least,if you want to impose curfew or something for containing a particular area,it has to be total. You can’t have a half-hearted measure,” he said.

Asked whether the Army was deployed as a deterrent to curb the violence,he said,”I think there was a sort of loss of confidence and they thought that Army should be seen more prominently. We said yes (to the deployment) as we are as much concerned as anyone else…Army is already there. It is already carrying out (operations) with the CRPF,with the police in conjunction with the state. So we are there for various things and we are helping them,” he said.

Chief Minister Omar Abdullah had on Saturday said that the Army,which was deployed in certain parts of Srinagar last week to assist the civil administration,may be withdrawn from the streets soon.

He said the state government was using the Army in the “extreme periphery” and the presence of the force was not more than six or eight columns (600-800 personnel).