Pravin Sawhney, an Indian author and a former soldier of Indian Army has criticized government’s policy towards its unsuccessful attempts at suppressing public dissent in Kashmir.
Pravin Sawhney took to social media, criticizing Indian media and urging it to question Indian Army’s tactics and policies which have consecutively failed to address the Kashmir issue over the last 30 years causing several casualties on the Indian side.
“Whatever the outcome of Handwara ops in Kashmir, media should be asking a straight question from the army: Can you ever win this war waging for 30 years? But, they won’t. Instead there will have war gaming in studios will TV veterans explaining tactics under pandemic conditions!” he tweeted.
He questioned Indian Army leadership’s ability to win, and highlighted its complete failure to ensure the safety of lives of Indian troops deployed in the Kashmir valley.
“Why are you wasting brave soldiers, knowing well you cannot win – I have been saying this since Op Parakram 2001-2002 ,” he added.
Pravin Sawhney said that countries must realize when they are chasing a wrong war and Indian military must do so too, however it seems highly unlikely under Chief of Defence Staff of India – General Rawat, he noted.
This has been one of the biggest lost to Indian army in recent years as the personnel killed include a Commanding Officer of anti-insurgency unit, an Army Major, two soldiers and a police Sub Inspector.
“Sad to inform that five brave personnel including Colonel Ashutosh Sharma, Major Anuj Sood, sub-inspector of JKP Shakeel Qazi, Lance Naik Dinesh Singh and Naik Rajesh Kumar were martyred in the line of duty,” read the statement issued by Director General of Police Dilbagh Singh.
The death of Colonel Ashutosh Sharma is a significant blow to the Indian army as he was the commanding officer (CO) of a battalion (around 1,000 men) of the ‘21 Rashtriya Rifles’ – a specialized anti-terror unit.
According to the details, a five-member counterinsurgency team entered a home located in the north-western Handwara. The raiding party came under heavy fire which saw five Indian security personnel being killed.
No group has yet taken the responsibility of the incident and there has been no independent confirmation on the occurrence of any ‘hostage’ situation.
Prior to this, five Special Forces commandos of Indian Army were killed in a gun battle with Mujahideen in Keran sector last month.
