Eye On Taliban, Former Army Chief Says Need To Step Up Kashmir Outreach

General Roychowdury said India needs to reach out to former Afghan government forces rallying around Ahmad Massoud and friendlier Taliban factions

Former Army chief General Shankar Roychowdhury said the government needs to step up outreach in Kashmir and reassure people there that India will continue to be a secular democracy as the Taliban victory in Afghanistan is likely to see a renewed offensive by Pakistan-based terrorists. The retired General, who had commanded 16 corps in Kashmir at the height of militancy in that state in early 1990s, and became Army chief later in the same decade when Taliban last came to rule over Kabul, believes that Pakistan, re-enforced by the recent Taliban victory, "will make a fresh bid on Kashmir" using groups such as Jaish-e-Mohammed. He also said that India needs to reach out to both former Afghan government forces rallying around Ahmad Massoud, son of the late anti-Taliban commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, in Panjshir Valley, as well as to factions within the Taliban which are friendlier to India. "We have to step up our outreach to Kashmiris, we also have to re-assure them that India will continue to be a secular democracy," General Roychowdhury, who currently heads a strategic think tank Research Centre for Eastern and Northeastern Studies, told PTI in an interview.