NEW DELHI – Indian Army Chief makes new claims over Occupied Kashmir .
Indian Army Chief General Manoj Mukund Naravane claimed that the securitysituation in restive Jammu and Kashmirlinkhasimproved, after the repeal of Article 370 in early August 2019.
The federal government on 5 August 2019 revoked Article 370 of theConstitution, stripping Jammu and Kashmir of its special status and alsodividing the state into two federally administered territories.
Although several restrictions have been lifted as the situation in Kashmirstabilisedlink,several political leaders including three former Chiefs of the former state– Dr Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti are still in thepreventive custody of security forces.
General Naravane also confirmed that two battalions of the army havealready been withdrawn from the most volatile and sensitive regions of thenortheastern state of Assam, which has witnessed decades of secessionistviolence.
A tribal insurgent group- Bodos, demanding a separate state since themid-1980s waged an armed struggle against the provincial and federalgovernments. But the government succeeded in negotiations and signeda peace agreement with a group of militant organisations on Mondaylink27January.
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The Army Chief promised that once the tribal Bodos completed elections fortheir autonomous territory as provided by the pact, additional troops wouldbe withdrawn from the region and there would be a shift away fromcounter-insurgency operations.
“Two battalions have been already taken out. Once the Bodoland TerritorialCouncil (BTC) elections are over, we will reduce more troops. In the next2-2.5 years we will concentrate fully on conventional warfare in thenortheast rather than on counter-insurgency operations,” he said onWednesday.
The Bodos, the earliest settlers in Assam, are the largest ethnic group innortheastern India with 1.3 million people. The Bodo insurgency began in1947 with the demand for better social, political and economic conditions,as they claimed the non-tribal population of Assam had neglected them.
