NEW DELHI – Indian Army chief General Bipin Rawat has said the youth inKashmir must not get “carried away unnecessarily” and understand “azadi” isnot possible as the security forces will always fight those who want tosecede, the *Indian Expresslink>*saidon Thursday.

Gen Rawat told the Indian Express in an interview that he was concernedthat the youth in the strife-torn state are picking up guns and “those whotell them (that) this path will bring azadi … misleading them”.

“These numbers (of militants who are killed in gunbattles with the army)don’t matter to me because I know this cycle will continue. There are freshrecruitments happening. I only want to stress that all this is futile,nothing is going to be achieved by them. You can’t fight the army,” GenRawat said.

He added that the security forces “don’t enjoy” killing but if anyone wantsto “fight us then we will fight you with all our force”.

“Kashmiris have to understand that the SFs (security forces) haven’t beenso brutal — Our troops have been trying their level best to avoid anycivilian casualty despite huge provocation,’’ he said.

“I know that the youth are angry. But attacking security forces, throwingstones at us isn’t the way,” he said.

He also expressed concern over people flocking to sites of gunbattles and“inciting security forces by pelting stones at them to disrupt theoperations … They are inciting security forces to become more aggressive.’’

“I don’t understand why people are coming out in huge numbers to disruptour operations. Who is inciting them? If they want that the militantsaren’t killed, they should go and tell them to come out without theirweapons so that nobody is killed … We will halt our operation. We can’tallow people to disrupt our operations and help terrorists to flee,” hetold the Indian Express.

The general said the army, which has been criticised for using extremeforce in the state, “did try a soft approach too” and pointed out to theviolence in 2016 after Hizbul Mujahideen’s Burhan Wani was killed in agunfight with security forces.

“… Until June 2016, everything was fine. What is that incited people somuch because of that one encounter? Everything was turned upside down in afew days’ time. The entire South Kashmir was out in the streets, throwingstones at us, attacking our posts,” he said.