“If they become a problem in our operation and if that causes losses to our soldiers, we will not hesitate to use weapons,” Rawat said in no uncertain terms.
Alerted by stone-pelters, militants got an opportunity to lob hand grenades and empty a few magazines from rifles into advancing troopers, leaving three soldiers dead and some others, including a commanding officer of the CRPF, injured.
General Rawat said security forces in Jammu and Kashmir were facing higher casualties due to the manner in which locals were preventing them from conducting the operations and “at times even supporting the terrorists to escape”.
“We would now request the local population that people who have picked up arms, and they are the local boys, if they want to continue with these acts of terrorism, displaying flags of ISIS (Islamic State) and Pakistan, then we will treat them as anti-national elements and go helter-skelter for them,” he told reporters in New Delhi.
