‘A Larger Conflict Can’t be Discounted’: Gen Rawat on China & Pak

“Our posturing is unambiguous; we will not accept any shift in the Line of Actual Control,” Gen Rawat said.

Army Chief Gen Bipin Rawat. 

Photo: (PTI) 

“Border confrontations and unprovoked military actions spiralling into a larger conflict can’t be discounted,” said Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat, reported news agency PTI.

General Rawat said the situation along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) remains tense and China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) was facing "unanticipated consequences" for its misadventure in Ladakh.

“Our posturing is unambiguous; we will not accept any shift in the Line of Actual Control,” PTI quoted the Chief of Defence Staff as saying at a webinar organized by the National Defence College.

“As India grows in stature, security challenges will rise proportionately. We must move out of the constant threat of sanctions or dependency on individual nations for our military requirements and invest in building long-term indigenous capability for strategic independence and application of decisive military power to squarely meet present and emerging challenges," said General Rawat.

Referring to Pakistan, he said: “Pakistan has continued to remain the epicentre of armed Islamic insurgency and terrorism. For three decades now, Pakistan Army and its intelligence agency ISI have been waging a proxy war in J&K have now increasingly resorting to non-kinetic means by launching vicious anti-India rhetoric on social media and propagating false communal narrative to create social disharmony within India,” news agency ANI quoted the General.