Tezpur, April 18 :     In stark contrast to his image as a general who served in blood-splattered Jammu and Kashmir in the mid-Nineties ? when the question was whether to respect ?human rights? or conduct the ?last rites? of the Kashmiri Mujahideen ? Lt. Gen. D.B. Shekatkar has reacted to insurgency in Assam with a ?healing touch.? Since February 12, Lt. Gen. Shekatkar has been at the helm of the operations group of the unified command structure in Assam in his capacity as the general-officer-commanding of the Army?s Four Corps. Considered an expert on counter-insurgency and psychological warfare for his successful stints in the Kashmir Valley as well as Punjab, Lt. Gen. Shekatkar was drafted out for yet another innings in Assam early this year ? his third since he was commissioned into the Maratha Light Infantry in 1963. Stated to be the officer who was ?the motivating force? behind the surrender of a large number of hardcore militants in Kashmir, he has been brought to Assam at a time when the Army and police are working overtime to convince more rebels to lay down arms. The general had stints in the other northeastern states as well ? Nagaland, Manipur, Tripura and Mizoram. In 1995-96, he spearheaded the strategic Eight Mountain Division based at Shershali near Srinagar. The Army swoop on Charar-e-Sharif and Hazaratbal took place during this period. In Punjab, he led a brigade. Having served in all the three main theatres of insurgency in the country, Lt. Gen. Shekatkar feels each sector of insurgency is different from the other. ?The so-called causes of the insurgents are different, their nature or modes of approach towards the causes are different, the cultures of the people are different and the situations prevailing on the ground are also different,? he told The Telegraph. ?Because of these differences, you cannot compare one insurgency with the other. Therefore, the approach towards tackling each case has to be different. One cannot have the same approach towards insurgency in Kashmir and Assam. What Assam needs is a healing touch,? he said, adding ?the cause of insurgency in Assam is, I suppose, social and economic deprivation.? In what appears to be the ?healing touch? Lt. Gen. Shekatkar is talking about, the Army has launched a civic action programme in the countryside. Since the last couple of months, the Army has adopted more than two dozen villages ? each battalion being entrusted with one ? to establish schools and poultry farms, and develop civic amenities. According to Lt. Gen. Shekatkar, the security forces had to deal with foreign mercenaries and ?fundamentalist? militants in Kashmir, all having ?tremendous? backing from across the border. ?In many cases, mercenaries were hired only to kill,? he said. However, the Four Corps chief declined to comment when asked if the Army had to take recourse to a bullet-for-bullet policy because of the presence of foreign mercenaries. ?The insurgents in Assam are not mercenaries but a bunch of misguided youth who are our own children. They do not believe in fundamentalism. Neither do they believe in carrying out the job of a hired killer,? he said. Lt. Gen. Shekatkar also said the demand for ?azadi (freedom)? in the Kashmir Valley could not be compared with the Ulfa?s demand for sovereignty of Assam or the Bodo extremists? aspiration for an independent Bodoland. ?I firmly believe that the Ulfa wants a turnaround in Assam. But it is finding it difficult to say so. The leadership is finding it difficult to retract because it has gone so far,? he said. Without naming Pakistan?s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Lt. Gen. Shekatkar said, ?The foreign arm in Assam is not as long as one saw in Jammu and Kashmir.? Lt. Gen. Shekatkar also said Ulfa and Bodo extremists here could not imagine the kind of armoury the Kashmiri militants had at their disposal.