Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat on Thursday said that “de-radicalisation camps” are operating in India where those who have “completely been radicalised” can be taken. Rawat made the remarks at the panel discussion Raisina Dialogue 2020 in New Delhi.

“Like what we are seeing in Kashmir...we saw radicalisation happening,” Rawat said. “...there are people who have completely been radicalised. These people need to be taken out separately, possibly taken into some de-radicalisation camps. We have de-radicalisation camps going on in our country.”

He added: “Let me tell you, even Pakistan is doing the same. Pakistan also has de-radicalisation camps. They have understood that some of the terrorism that they have been sponsoring is actually hitting back at them.”

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Rawat said that this situation was prevalent among young people at present. He claimed that girls and boys around 12 years of age were now being radicalised, adding that they can still be “isolated from radicalisation in a gradual way”.

The top Army official said that one needed to get to the nerve of those who were radicalising people and then start isolating them gradually. Following this, a counter-radicalisation programme can be initiated while identifying the degree to which people have been radicalised. “You have got to segregate them into degrees,” Rawat said. “And then look at those who are completely radicalised, target them but then start also looking at the future.”

Rawat noted that the ideology of radicalisation needed to be addressed and called for an end to “online radicalisation”. He claimed this was happening in schools, universities, religious sites, and that certain people were spreading it.

At the same event, Rawat said that the only way to put an end to terrorism was to follow the path taken by the United States after the September 11, 2001 attacks. The United States had invaded Afghanistan and deposed the Taliban from power, and began a hunt for Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the terror attack, that ended with his killing by US special forces in 2011 in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

In a veiled reference to Pakistan, Rawat said that terrorism will continue as long as there are countries which sponsor it.