PAKISTAN is using a mix of social media, local influencers and narcotics to radicalise the Kashmir youth to pick up the gun but Army has launched various people-friendly initiatives to counter the propaganda of the inimical elements, a senior army officer has said.

General Officer Commanding of Army’s 15 Corps Lieutenant General ADS Aujla said the attempts from across the Line of Control (LoC) to push narcotics was a cause of concern as it was destroying the future generation of Kashmir.

“Social media plays a very important role in this (radicalisation) and that is where the western adversary invests very heavily and that is where the narratives are built, the themes are built...Which then are let loose in the environment and caught out by the youngsters here,” Lt Gen Aujla told PTI in an interview last week.

The officer, who has spent considerable part of his career in Jammu and Kashmir, said besides social media, the local cadres of Jamaat-e-Islami also play a major role in the indoctrination of the youth. “The local Jamaatis, they also play the major role in radicalising the youngsters. So, a combination of both of these gives them (youths) this high of falling on a wrongful path or joining a tanzeem or picking the weapon and doing something wrong,” he added.

Lt Gen Aujla said the youth of Kashmir are otherwise very focussed and brilliant minds. “It is just that within a large society, there are certain inimical elements who do prey upon certain individuals who are very very vulnerable because of either education or the condition at home or because of the peer pressure. It is primarily the social media, it is the Jamaatis who are there, and to a certain extent the peer group and a little bit about the narcotics which gets them on doing certain wrongs,” he said. Asked if the neighbouring country was using drones to deliver weapons and narcotics into Kashmir, the officer said terrain of the LoC in the Valley makes it a difficult task.