Terrorism is becoming a new form of warfare and it will keep growing like a “multi-headed monster” till nations continue to use it as a State policy, Army Chief Gen. Bipin Rawat said Wednesday as he pitched for some control over social media to contain spread of radicalisation and terror-funding.
In an address at the Raisina Dialogue, India’s flagship conference on geopolitics, the Army Chief said there should be talks with the Taliban so as to bring peace to Afghanistan but asserted the engagement must be without any preconditions.
In a clear reference to Pakistan, Gen. Rawat said a “weaker nation” has been using terrorists as a proxy to put pressure on other nations to come to terms with them, and warned against tolerating such policy.
“If this is going to happen, then there will be States that will be funding the terrorists and allowing them to move around in the manner in which they want to move,” he said, adding Pakistan has always kept the Taliban in its backyard.
Identifying social media as a platform to spread radicalism and generate financial resources for terrorism, the Army Chief said time has come to put some control over it.
“We see a different kind of radicalisation in Jammu and Kashmir. My take is that terrorism is here to stay so long as there are nations which are going to continue to sponsor terrorism as a state policy. We are seeing it happening in Jammu & Kashmir,” he said