SRINAGAR: General officer Commanding (GoC) of Srinagar-based 15 Corps D P Pandey on Wednesday asked militants to drop weapons and return home to become pillars for their families and the country.
Speaking with reporters on the sidelines of Chilai-e-Kalan festival at Batapora Shopian, Pandey said that his message to the militants would be to return home and become responsible citizens of the country.
“Look towards your parents not towards the white-collar militants who are asking children of other people to become militants but themselves are living a comfortable life with their families. You must stay away from such things as you are pillars of your family and country,” the news agency KNO quoted Pandey as having said.
Pandey urged the parents of militants to play a part in bringing their children back from the path of violence and join the mainstream and said that the “police and army would facilitate the smooth return of boys.”
He said that teenage youth is easily brainwashed and easily falls prey to the people “who only want if one will be killed, how the other will be activated.”
“If you (youth) have any issue, discuss them with parents if they aren’t able to provide any solution, knock our doors, we will always be available for your help,” Pandey said.
The GoC said that joining militant ranks and killing them “is a cycle” but “we all should make efforts to break this cycle as militancy will lead us to nowhere.”
He said that white-collar militancy is a factory in J&K that are only after to lure more and more youth towards militancy.
“The life of a militant is just a few days to months and families must ask white-collar militants about it so that we can save our generation from picking up guns,” Pandey said.
Pandey said the graph of local militant recruitment has gone down in J&K this year and in the coming time, the graph will go further down.
In August this year, Pandey and IGP Kashmir in a first direct interaction with families of active militants urged them to bring their children back into the mainstream.
