India Has Camps To Counter Radicalisation: Gen Bipin Rawat's Big Reveal

In a first, Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat today spoke of "de-radicalisation camps" operating in India, where young Kashmiris who have "completely been radicalized" can be isolated. Pakistan, too, has such camps to counter the fallout of their own propaganda, he said.

At a panel discussion at the Raisina Dialogue 2020 in New Delhi, General Rawat said in Kashmir today, children as young as 10 or 12 years old are being radicalized.

"These people can still be isolated from radicalisation in a gradual way. But there are people who have completely been radicalised," he said.

"These people need to be taken out separately, possibly taken into to some de-radicalisation camps. We have deradicalisation camps going on in our country. Let me tell you, Pakistan is doing the same. They have understood. Some of the terrorism they are sponsoring is hitting back at them," he added.

Radicalisation, he said, can be checked if right persons are targeted. "We can put an end to online radicalisation if we target the right persons. We have to address ideology of radicalisation," he added.

Since the death of Hizbul Mujaheedin terrorist Burhan Wani in 2016, radicalisation of young people has been rampant in Kashmir. For more than six months, Kashmir witnessed stone-throwing protests, in which boys in their early teens were seen participating.

The following year, practically the whole of South Kashmir -- Pulwama, Kulgam, Shopian and Anantnag - became the haunting ground of terrorists, where they struck at will.

In August, after ending the special status of Jammu and Kashmir and bifurcating the state into two union territories, the Centre had imposed a series of restrictions to prevent backlash.