Talking to The Indian Express, Maj Gen V S Yadav, General Officer Commanding (GOC), Infantry Division, said that not only was infiltration easier in these areas, but the villages' civil population was sometimes harassed by Pakistan. Estimating the number of such villages at 15, he, however, said that the shifting had to take place in a manner that was acceptable to the villages' population and did not create any social or economic tension. "It could be one village at a time," he added.

The GOC said that the number of militants in Rajouri-Poonch area were not more than 200 but they had been instructed to create disturbance in a wide terrain to give the impression of being present in massive numbers. "This is partof the psychological warfare by Pakistan," he said, adding that 70 per cent of the militants in the area were foreigners.

Asked about the time it would take for the situation to get normal, Maj Gen Yadav said that the security forces were attaining success and the situation could be normal in about three years. He said that with a large number of militants killed in the recent past, Pakistani agency were feeling the need of improving coordination. Attempts are being made to push in Army regulars by Pakistan and about six of them have been killed so far, two of them in the past week, he said. Pakistan had claimed their bodies too.

Maintaining that the foremost step in checking militancy was to stop infiltration, he said that latest equipment was being procured to do this in view of the peculiar terrain. Asked how a large quantity of arms and ammunition had been pushed into the Rajouri-Poonch area, recoveries of which were made by the security force personnel from time to time, Maj Gen Yadav said that thearms could have been brought in and secretly dumped before militancy was activated. "All this is part of the Pakistan game-plan for which some planning has been obviously been done," he said. Referring to the determined efforts by the Western neighbour to push in weapons, the GOC informed that nearly 200 weapons had been recovered on the LoC itself in the past year.

He said that the major benefit that has come about as a result of increased security force presence in the area was that people were now sharing information freely. Earlier, because of the pickets being away from their residences, they would be reluctant to come out and speak but that is not the case now, he said.

Asked for the reasons of increased Pakistani thrust in Rajouri-Poonch where militancy was last to pick up, he said that by extending their activities here the Pakistani agencies perhaps wanted to give the impression of the whole State being disturbed so as to be increase its bargaining position in any future negotiations. "And sinceRajouri provides the shortest routes to the Valley apart from Doda and Udhampur districts, Pakistan wants to gain sympathisers here," he said.

Talking about the peculiarities of the area, he said many families had their members on the two sides of LoC. "Instances can be found where brothers are serving the forces of there respective areas," he said, hinting at the people's tendency to cross the LoC.