Indian Army Chief General MM Naravane who concluded his two days visit to Kashmir valley reiterated its stand on ceasefire and said that the responsibility of holding ceasefire along the Line of Control is with Pakistan as India is willing to observe it.  

“Ceasefire is holding, Onus is clearly on Pakistan, we are willing to observe the ceasefire as long as they do so. But while the ceasefire is on, other activities that are the terror infrastructure, terror camps and terrorist continues, therefore there can be no slackening in our alertness and preparedness,” he said while addressing a brief press conference before departing to New Delhi.

Fresh adherence to observing ceasefire between India and Pakistan entered 100 days yesterday and today morning General visited the Line of Control and met troops deployed in snowbound areas.

Naravane while responding to a question if Pakistan can be trusted said that “trust is a difficult thing to come by and there have been decades of mistrust between Pakistan and India. The situation obviously on that score cannot change overnight.”

The Chief of the Indian army also made it clear that although the ceasefire is in place but the level of alertness and preparedness cannot be reduced. “We have a counter-infiltration grid to prevent any movement from across the LoC and a counter-terrorism grid in the hinterland, He said that these things are dynamic and depending on the threat perceptions and from time to time. “A review is done and If the situation permits then we do take pulling out some troops from active deployments to the rare areas so that they get time to rest relief and training but they wouldn’t be pulled altogether,” he said.

After reviewing the security scenarios in the valley, he said that there were strong indicators show great improvement in the situation.

“LoC and hinterland have seen a great improvement, few terrorists initiated incidents, hardly any cases of stone-pelting, almost nil IEDs. These are the indicators of a sense of normalcy,” the Army chief said.

Regarding the conduct of Amarnath Yatra, he said forces are prepared but the decision to conduct yatra is with the administration.