New Delhi, February 3
The Indian Army looks upon Pakistan's two recent violations of 14-month-long ceasefire on the Line of Control as isolated cases with no backing from the General Headquarters, Rawalpindi.

This assessment was disclosed to The Tribune by newly appointed Chief of Army Staff General Joginder Jaswant Singh today in an exclusive interview in his South Block office.

Gen Singh talked of three scenarios explaining the two incidents of ceasefire violation: (i) terrorists could have been behind these without the knowledge of Pakistan Army; (ii) terrorists in collusion with some elements of Pakistan Army could have done it; and (iii) it could have been the handiwork of certain elements from the Pakistan Army at the local level.

Gen Singh opined that in his personal assessment the third scenario seemed "very unlikely".

Talking to the TNS here in his first round of one-to-one interaction with the defence correspondents, Chief of Army Staff, who has spent more than 40 years of his life with the Indian Army, elaborated on this point. He said if this violation had been done by the Pakistani Army as an institution then, as per military logic, it should have been followed up with something else. And this did not happen.

"When we took up the matter at the level of the Director- General of Military Operation (DGMO), a strong message may have percolated down (in the Pakistan Army hierarchy) to adhere to the ceasefire strictly this, specially because the Indian Army had shown a lot of restraint and maturity," Gen Singh said.

Incidentally, diplomatically also India had taken up a similar stand that it was one-off violation without the backing of the Pakistan army.

He said that the maturity and the restraint shown by the Indian Army had not given Pakistan any chance to react further. The reaction of the Indian Army was one that should come from a formidable force.

"We are not only the second largest Army in the world but we should also project and behave like one of the strongest in the region," he said while asserting that there would be no knee-jerk reaction from the Indian Army over any action from any adversary.

"We would take a very professional approach to such incidents and give a very deliberate, sound and mature response to such incidents."

Admitting that the entire length of the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir cannot be secured despite the fencing along the 740 km of border with Pakistan, the no- nonsense Chief of Army Staff reiterated that the word "kill" would be erased from the dictionary of the Indian Army.

He added that the incidents of indiscipline would be brought down to "near negligible" levels.