Pakistan Army should be pressurised to return Hemraj's head: Gen Bikram Singh

Army Chief Gen Bikram Singh today said the Pakistan Army should be pressurised to return the head of Lance Naik Hemraj, who was beheaded by its troops in Poonch sector in Jammu and Kashmir.

The Army Chief said he would also visit the home of Hemraj whose family has been on a fast for the last six days demanding that his head be brought back from Pakistan.

"We have to make the Pakistan Army accountable. There are diplomatic, political ways of doing it. As far as the Army is concerned, increasing force and violence is a national decision. We want the head back but what do you when a country and its Army are in denial mode?

"I think we should pressurise them nationally and internationally as part of our national element so that they are made accountable and they are made to return the head of our soldier which they have taken away," he said in his annual Army day press conference here.

Gen Singh said that for getting the head back, "it will be taken up at the government level and you will have to appreciate that this has to to be done through diplomatic channels.

"It will also be conveyed to the DGMO. It is also being conveyed today in no uncertain terms. Let us see if Pakistan Army heeds to our request and complies to it," he said.

Hemraj and Sudhakar Singh were killed by Pakistani troops on January 8 in Poonch sector in Jammu and Kashmir. The Pakistan Army regulars took away the head of Hemraj as trophy and also mutilated the body of the other soldier.

Hemraj's wife and mother have refused to end their six-day-old fast demanding that the Army Chief visits their house and assure them that his severed head will be brought back from Pakistan.

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