Against the backdrop of continuing unrest in Jammu & Kashmir and rising number of incidents of stone pelting, Army Chief General Bipin Rawat on Tuesday urged students from Kashmir to opt for books and laptops to end violence in the State.
"They (the youth) should either have a laptop or a book. Whatever time they get they should devote to studies," the Army Chief said while interacting here with a group of candidates from the state who cleared the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) entrance examination and Joint Entrance Examination(JEE). lauding their feat, he said their success was not an easy accomplishment adding they have now become a shining example for the youth in the Kashmir Valley.
The successful candidates are from Army's Super-40 coaching initiative to train local children for engineering entrance examination. The coaching scheme started four years back and this year 26 boys and two girls from the state cracked the prestigious IIT-JEE Mains examination. Nine students successfully qualified for the IIT Advanced Examinations, the results of which were declared some days back.
The coaching is conducted at Srinagar by Army, its training partner Centre for Social Responsibility & learning (CSRl) and Petronet lNG. This was also the first batch in which five girls from Kashmir valley were coached in Delhi. Two of the five qualified in the JEE Mains. Army provides boarding and lodging for the candidates.
Addressing the students, Rawat referred to his stints in the State over the years and said the situation started deteriorating in during his second posting in 1991. "I have seen the situation. How many generations will see this gunfire and smoke from explosivesIJ" he asked. "Generations have been destroyed due to this. The fear that has set in the mind of people of Kashmir and the youth... (that) a militant or the security forces will come.
"So you have militants on one side and security forces on the other. How long will we stay in this atmosphereIJ We have to put an end to it. We wish that peace is restored there and we carry out our daily work without any problem," Rawat said. He also said the recent spell of unrest has led to decline in tourism in the Valley.
"Kashmir is heaven. We have to again bring it to that level which was there before. The world flocks to see the Valley, but people are not able to come because of the tension," he said. Rawat urged the students to return to their roots after completing their studies and help in the development of the State.
This year 35 students were enrolled for this programme and 24 of them cleared JEE Mains and are eligible for a seat in the National Institute of Technology(NITs).
Of the 24, nine passed JEE Advanced, an entrance test to get an IIT berth. The remaining 11, who could not clear entrance for the NITs or IITs, have passed the Jammu and Kashmir's Common Entrance Test (CET) for engineering. The Army is now planning to increase the strength of coaching classes and wants to select 50 candidates for Army-50 next year, officials said.
Felicitating the successful candidates here, Minister of State for Personnel Jitendra Singh, who is a lok Sabha MP from Jammu and Kashmir's Udhampur constituency, said these students have set an example before others to follow. He also said in the recently declared Civil Services Examination results, 14 candidates from the state made it to the list. Singh said that in the civil services exam result declared recently.