Northern Command opens Twitter account to interact with people

JAMMU: In a bid to counter the use of social networking sites by militants, the Northern Command of the Army has joined the social media platform to interact with people of Jammu and Kashmir.

General Officer Commanding-in Chief (GOC-in-C) of the Northern Command, Lt Gen D S Hooda, in his first tweet wrote "presence of Norther Comd on Twitter is a step towards involving our citizens in activities of Indian Army in J&K" (sic).

In his second tweet, Lt Gen Hooda wrote that he looks forward for a positive interaction through this forum.

Earlier, the Army in Jammu and Kashmir had used Twitter and Facebook to reach to the common masses to make them aware of the initiatives taken by it under Operation Sadbhavana but the new official Twitter account would enable the people interact with the senior most army officer in the state.

"The militants in Kashmir have been actively using social media to spread their message across and it was a high time for the Army to do the perception management by showing its presence on the social media and opening of the twitter handle on which the senior most officer in the state would respond is a step towards this direction", an army officer said.

Apart from the Northern Command, the Eastern Command also has been granted permission to operate an official Twitter handle to interact with the netizens.