4 months ago
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NEW DELHI: The Army has launched a grooming programme for the Village Defence Guards (VDG) successful Jammu and Kashmir amid the ongoing counter-terrorism cognition successful the higher reaches of Chenab valley.According to the Army, astir 15 Village Defence Guards, including women volunteers, are undergoing intensive grooming successful handling automatic rifles, insignificant tactics, self-defence, bunker operation and repelling force attacks, they said.
Officials told quality bureau PTI that the raining is being conducted astatine Shingini panchayat of Balassa, astir 90 km from the Doda territory headquarters. It aims to equip volunteers with the indispensable skills to support their villages and enactment arsenic a archetypal enactment of defence, particularly successful susceptible areas.The determination complements the ongoing cognition by the Army, constabulary and paramilitary forces successful the higher reaches to way down and neutralise the terrorists who had managed to infiltrate into Chenab valley, particularly Doda and Kishtwar districts, a mates of years back, officials added.The VDGs welcomed the grooming and the caller upgradation of their weaponry. They expressed gratitude to Union Home Minister Amit Shah for providing self-loading rifles (SLRs), replacing the older .303 rifles, which they said, has importantly boosted their confidence.
"This is simply a large programme bringing unneurotic members from 17 Village Defence Groups. We are being trained successful limb handling, bunker operation and self-defence. Receiving specified grooming astatine our doorstep is highly appreciable," Surinder Singh, a VDG subordinate from Shingani, said.He requested the authorities to supply much automatic weapons to the members, recalling the predominant panic attacks successful the portion during the aboriginal 1990s.Another VDG member, Rajesh Kumar Thakur from Gauala village, said the grooming by the Army and Jammu and Kashmir Police has instilled a consciousness of confidence."Earlier, we lone had .303 rifles. After receiving automatic weapons, our assurance has increased, and we present consciousness susceptible of defending our villages," helium said.This comes arsenic helium Army has intensified its counter-terrorism operations crossed the Kishtwar and Doda districts amid the ongoing Chillai Kalan — the 40-day bone-chilling wintertime play — successful Jammu and Kashmir.According to sources, assorted quality agencies asses that determination are astir 30 to 35 Pakistani terrorists presently successful the Jammu region.Inputs gathered implicit the past fewer months suggest that these groups, uncovering themselves cornered by palmy counter-terror operations, person shifted deeper into higher and mediate upland reaches of the portion — areas present devoid of habitation. These terrorists are believed to beryllium seeking impermanent wintertime hideouts to evade detection and debar nonstop confrontation with information troops, they added.Meanwhile, the Army and information forces person besides adopted a proactive wintertime posture, establishing impermanent bases and surveillance posts heavy wrong snow-covered areas to support continuous unit connected imaginable violent hideouts.
