Hit stone-pelters with bullets: BJP MP D P Vats

BJP Rajya Sabha member D P Vats has said that stone-pelters in Kashmir Valley should be hit with bullets.

Pakistan has started a proxy war with the country and each day our forces in Jammu and Kashmir are being attacked, the former commandant of Pune's Armed Forces Medical College said yesterday.

"...I am of the opinion that stone-pelters should be hit with bullets," Vats said when asked about the Jammu and Kashmir government's decision to withdraw cases against people involved in stone-pelting incidents.

Pakistan has not learnt a lesson despite tasting defeat many times in direct wars with India and is now engaged in proxy war, the retired lieutenant general told reporters on the sidelines of a function in Bhiwani yesterday.

When PTI today asked him if he stood by his comment, Vats said, "I am an Army officer, the Army has been fighting a proxy war waged by Pakistan for a long time. What does my soldier fighting this proxy war on the ground in Kashmir expect of me? As an Army officer, I stand by what I have said."

He also said that each day bodies of soldiers killed in Kashmir are sent to their native places.

"What should soldiers expect of their officers. We cannot let down their morale. They cannot be attacked and pelted with stones," he said.

Vats (69), who hails from Hisar, was recently elected to the Upper House of Parliament. He had served as the director and commandant of the prestigious AFMC, Pune.

He has also served as the chairman of the Haryana Public Service Commission between May 2011 and April 2012 during the Bhupinder Singh Hooda-led Congress government in the state.

On June 1, two youths were injured after they had allegedly been hit by a CRPF vehicle during clashes between protesters and security forces in Nowhatta area here in the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir.

The duo was taken to SKIMS hospital at Soura here where one of them -- Kaiser Bhat -- succumbed around midnight.