“The priority of the armed forces is to neutralise the terrorist as fast as possible, because if you succeed, recruitment levels go down”, said Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat on Thursday, 7 May, on killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Riyaz Naikoo.
The top Hizbul Mujahideen commander was killed on Wednesday, 6 May, after a massive operation was launched by the security forces to trap him in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama, officials told PTI.
“Creating more than a life-size image of a terrorist is somehow propagating them into developing a Rambo kind of image. The more we stay away from them and highlight their negativity, the more we’ll not create their Ramboistic image,” Rawat said.
Rawat said that there are some people who are uneducated but possess intelligence and wisdom, but there are others who are “educated but behave as if they lack wisdom and intelligence.”
The encounter in which Naikoo was killed started late on Tuesday, 5 May, night and continued till Wednesday afternoon. Mobile internet services in Kashmir were snapped on Wednesday, 6 May, morning, reported PTI.
A report in IANS said Riyaz Naikoo had come to his native home in Pulwama’s Beighpora village when the security forces including the Rashtriya Rifles (RR), Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and the Special Operations Group (SOG) of the local police, moved in quickly to seal all entry and exit points of the village.
(With inputs from PTI, ANI)
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