UDHAMPUR: Jammu and Kashmir's top Army commander today said no cross-border infiltration took place this year in the state but flagged South Kashmir region as a cause of concern for the security setup.
"As per an assessment, which is done by all intelligence agencies, there are figures of last three years 2012--2015 about successfully infiltrated (militants). As many as 97 people infiltrated in 2013 followed by 65 in 2014,", General Officer Commanding In Chief (GoC-In-C), Northern Command, Lt Gen D S Hooda said.
"As per our assessment is concerned, nobody has successfully infiltrated from across (the border) this year," Lt Gen Hooda told PTI in an interview here.
He however said that most of these infiltration bids are actually taking place in Kashmir region and it is only after the snow melts in July, August, September, October months, when you see a peak in infiltration.
Lt Gen Hooda said that 100 militants had been neutralized in 2013 along LoC and the hinterland followed by killing of 150 militants in 2014 and 40 militants this year till now.
On the security situation in J&K, the Army Commander said "See there is a bit of concern. I will not say that the situation has gone out of hand...Frankly, if you compare it with what was there in the past and slowly over a period of time, there was a certain amount of stability in the security environment".
"But what we are seeing during past some time, soft targets like Panchs, Mobile tower owners, retired police officers etc are targeted, incidents of weapon snatching are taking place. Surely they give us some cause of concern to see that we need to bring the situation back towards normalcy," Lt Gen said.
"I think South Kashmir is a bit of concern for security agencies. I am hopeful that we should be able to control the situation. Wee have to be dynamic and operational not to be static", he added.