Reiterating that infiltrations along the Line of Control (LoC) have the support of the Pakistan Army, Chief of Army Staff General Bikram Singh on Wednesday said these crossovers will continue and predicted that the push of people from across the border would become increasingly desperate.
"On the contrary, it will go up. This is a time they are going to be desperate and they will try and push in more people," he said in an exclusive interview to ANI, when asked whether infiltrations such as the latest one in the Keran Sector, will go down in future.
General Singh further said all infiltrations along the Line of Control have the support of the Pakistani army.
"You cannot infiltrate from that area where I mentioned yesterday that you have the eyeball to eyeball deployment from both sides. And with that kind of deployment, it is not possible for terrorists to infiltrate without the knowledge and support of Pakistani army," he added.
To a poser on whether he meant that there was no lapses from the Indian side, General Singh said that his men would learn lessons from this and improve things.
"We got our troops deployed there. It is not just that one jawans is sitting at every ten metres, please understand that. The units are deployed tactically, the patoons are deployed tactically. When they are deployed tactically, the inter platoon locality or inter section locality...the gaps are covered with your mobile patrols, with your civilian equipments. So, it is not a hermetically sealed Line of Control," said General Singh.
"In war fighting, nobody wants to lose. Everybody wants to win. So, let the soldier carry out his job. So, this is war fighting. You may have your successes; there may be some drawback which may have occurred. But I think there are very competent, very professional brigade commanders...I am sure they will be able to handle all this. They will learn lessons from this and improve things. I think we should be looking at the entire thing in a more positive manner.
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Your soldiers are doing a great job. They are committed, they are dedicated," he added.
Talking about the counter infiltration measures being taken by the Indian Army, General Singh said: "The counter infiltration grid that we have that is being ensured. You heard the Army Commander yesterday. He was very categorical in this regard that this is being done very diligently with a lot of focus."
The Army Chief had on Tuesday rejected the perception that the Keran incident was on the pattern of the 1999 Kargil intrusion, and said it was just an infiltration bid by terrorists but suggested the complicity of Pakistan Army in the episode.
General Singh insisted that terrorists were not occupying any higher ground but sitting in a 'nallah' (rivulet) near the LoC in Kashmir Valley.
"It was a desperate infiltration bid, which has been foiled," he told media on the sidelines of the Air Force Day parade at Hindon.