Asserting that Pakistan is unhappy with peace in Kashmir, a senior Army commander on Monday said the neighbouring country has failed at information warfare as its narrative is not being consumed in the valley.

Meanwhile, lauding the role of security forces during counter-militancy operations, General officer Commanding (GoC) 15 Corps Lt Gen B S Raju said that the last couple of encounters were conducted in a ‘smooth manner’ with no collateral damage to civilian property.

Lt Gen Raju said that the people in Kashmir took scrapping of Article 370 in a positive manner and normalcy had returned in February before COVID-19 came with another round of lockdown.

“The operation was conducted smoothly because of the professionalism of all security force agencies involved,” Lt Gen Raju told reporters during a press conference at the Victor Force headquarters at Awantipora in south Kashmir.

The Army commander said he was aware of the difficult circumstances under which the operation was conducted. “The operation was difficult as it involved evacuating considerable number of civilians from the area,” he added.

He said the population in Kashmir took the decision of scrapping of Article 370 in a positive manner. “We saw relative peace for a very long time. By around February things had opened up. People began to move around and schools had opened up with full attendance. Winter tourism had kicked in Gulmarg. So we were seeing all sense of normalcy before issue of COVID-19 came in and we went into another round of lockdown,” he said.

Lt Gen Raju said that if there is anyone who is not happy with peace coming into the valley it is Pakistan. “It is in his (Pakistan’s) larger game plan to keep the pot boiling in the valley because that is how the relevance of Pakistani Army remains within Pakistan,” he said.

“As far as Pakistani contribution in violence here… It is combination of two things, one in physical front in terms of inducting weapons along the Line of Control (LoC) as part of infiltration or through various means it has at its disposal,” he said.

“…the second, which is more important, is the information warfare it is attempting to play. But, Pakistan has not been able to do successfully,” he said.

He said the fact that peace continue to prevail in the valley is because its narrative is not being consumed.

The Army commander also appealed people not to consume ‘Pak media misinformation’. “It would like to make an appeal to people not to consume Pak media as it is propagating misinformation. And that is something I would like to say at the cost of repetition,” he said.

Lt Gen Raju said there are rough figure of about 100 local militants active in the valley, besides about 25 foreigners. “That is the numbers we are broadly looking at,” he added.