Tezpur, April 12 :     The Army claims that surrendered militants are of ?no use? to it in gathering information about insurgent outfits. ?Those who surrender are usually those who have resorted to fence-sitting for several months before deciding to lay down arms,? general-officer-commanding of the Four Corps, Lt. Gen. D.B. Shekatkar, told The Telegraph. He said since surrendered rebels were ?fence-sitters for months and lukewarm to happenings taking place underground, they can be hardly regarded as a storehouse of information about the latest that is happening.? Gen. Shekatkar, who also heads the operations group of the unified command structure, was replying to a question about allegations that the Army was ?using? the surrendered militants, particularly Ulfa rebels who surrendered in 1992 (comprising the Sulfa), to get to their former comrades-in-arms. ?There is no truth in the allegation that the Army is backing the Sulfa. Anybody can make an allegation and we cannot stop anyone from doing so,? the Four Corps chief said, adding that ?the end-result of such baseless allegations is that innocents are getting killed.? Gen. Shekatkar was obviously referring to the fratricidal clashes between Sulfa and Ulfa cadres as the latter suspected their former colleagues of being in league with the Army and assisting in organising surrenders. Such clashes during the past few months have claimed several lives, including relatives of Sulfa and Ulfa members. ?The Army is against the philosophy of allowing innocents to get killed. We have decided to be tough with anyone who picks up the gun, whether it is the Ulfa or the Sulfa,? Gen. Shekatkar said. Reiterating that the ?usefulness of a surrendered militant was very restricted in the long run,? the general said, ?When a militant who has surrendered recently is of no use to us, how can the Sulfa, which came overground seven years ago, have any utility for our information-gathering machinery?? He said the Army had adopted a policy of ?not probing? militants who had surrendered since mid-last year. Probing, he explained, implied ?reminding them about their past, which they have aborted and would not like to be reminded about.? Asked if the Ulfa-Sulfa war, which had forced both sides to choose soft targets, was posing a ?new challenge? for the security forces, Gen. Shekatkar said, ?We cannot give the guarantee of protection for everybody. The Army is here to create a situation where the common man feels safe.? He added that ?attacking soft targets shows the kind of frustration that prevails on both sides.?