Is the Kashmir youth alienated? 82 joined terror groups, but 215 joined the Indian Army

Srinagar, Aug 22: A top Army officer had an interesting point to make while speaking about the reported alienation of Kashmiri youth. If everybody is alienated in Kashmir, then why do such a huge number youth join the Indian Army, Lieutenant General Satish Duo asked.

He was speaking on the sidelines of a passing out parade at the Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry Regimental Training Centre at Rangreth.

Giving out further details, he said that nearly 215 new recruits completed their vigorous training of 11 months at the JAKLI and were inducted into the Army after a passing out cum attestation parade at the regimental centre.

The fact that there are youth in Kashmir who aspire to join the Army can be gauged by the Army recruitment rallies held in which 100s of youth from Kashmir have stood in queue. He however hoped that those who had joined terror groups would return to the mainstream soon.

The details given out by the officer comes as a relief as the Union Home Ministry had recently said that nearly 82 youth from Kashmir had joined terror groups this year. In 2017, 128 youth had joined terror groups. However in 2017, the Army killed 220 terrorists of which 15 were top commanders of various groups.

Due further said that the situation in the Valley is well under control. Incidents of stone pelting had drastically reduced and so had the infiltrations, he added.

Addressing the new recruits, the officer said that after 11 months of hard work, 215 youth from various parts of the state have been inducted into the JAKLI. Now all 215 soldiers are of one regiment and the beauty of JAKLI is that soldiers of every religion operated under one regiment. They pray under one roof where there are Temples, Gurudwaras and Masjids.