Go after sources to get rid of terrorism: Retd Major General

Retd Major General Katoch wants Indian Army to make its Pak counterpart bleed on the borders and tells it to keep the fight on until they beg to stop it and come for talks

​Hanamkonda: Holding Pakistan responsible for the insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir, retired Major General Dhruv C Katoch wanted Indian army to make its counterpart to bleed on the borders.

Pak army that supports insurgents and often violates border treaties must be made to feel the pain, he suggested and added ‘It must be amplified and should keep it going on until they beg to stop it and come for talks’.

Katoch, the Director India Foundation and Secretary General of Indian War Veterans Association (IWVA) delivered a lecture on ‘Global terrorism and the challengers for India’ at NIT Warangal here on Monday.

He said in J&K since 1990 the armed forces seized 28,000 AK series assault rifles, which would be enough to eliminate the army of Nepal or Bangladesh. Similarly 62,000 land mines were seized.

‘Where do they come, from the border across Pak. The funding to get them is given by Arab world’.
According to him, a militant, whatever is his outfit, should not be the target to end terrorism.

He wanted the government and its agencies to go after the sources that were funding and spreading ideology must be curtailed to get rid of the terrorism fully from the country.

‘India could achieve double digit growth (GDP) if extremism in three major conflict zones, in J&K, North Eastern India and the Red Corridor in the forests of Orissa, Chhattisgarh and others. The states in these zones are not contributing fully to India’s economy,’ he said.

The issue of extremism in the country has to be viewed in terms of economic growth. When extremism ends and the states affected by the conflict witness economic progress the country would also progress, Katoch noted.

He pointed out that the spread of naxal activities was due to failure of governance and justice delivery system, under development, exploitation of resources and lack of empathy.

‘We still use British model governance, which is exploitative. The mind set of IAS and IPS officials has to change’. The war veteran felt that state must control information flow on the issues related to terrorism and how the government responds to it.

‘The Left wing ideology influences the info flow. There must be a counter narrative, the narrative must flow from all sides Left, Centre and Right’ he asserted.

Katoch answered questions from audience on the subject. The NITW director Prof GRC Reddy presided over the lecture organised by Prof L Ramgopal Reddy of physics department of the institute.