Get ready to fight Naxals,said Chief. Or did he?

Hours after it put out a press release quoting Army Chief General V K Singh as telling officers to be mentally prepared to step into the fight against Naxalism if the situation on the ground did not improve....

Hours after it put out a press release quoting Army Chief General V K Singh as telling officers to be mentally prepared to step into the fight against Naxalism if the situation on the ground did not improve,the Defence wing of the Press Information Bureau withdrew the release. No reason was assigned.

The release quoted Singh as telling officers of the Southern Command,in a closed-door address at an auditorium of the Armed Forces Medical College,that it might be in six months or in a year or two,but if we have to maintain our relevance as a tool of the state,we will have to undertake things that the nation wants us to.

According to the release,Singh said there is no let-up in the proxy war situation with our western neighbour whose activities,including operation of sleeper cells in J&K,continue. On China,he said though talks are on,Beijing continues to spend heavily on modernising its forces. With our unsettled border,transgressions taking place in disputed border areas cannot be ruled out, the release quoted Singh.

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Army Commander Southern Command Lt Gen Pradeep Khanna,Chief of Staff Southern Command Lt Gen R K Swamy and other senior officers were present during Singhs address.

The Army Chief was quoted as saying officer shortages are here to stay as less people are joining in the Direct Entry and Short Service Schemes and everyone has to learn to live with the shortages till the situation changes… It is the duty of the commanding officers to make an effort to motivate more people to join the Army as officers.