New Delhi, June 8: India is fully ready for a "two-and-a-half-front war", army chief Bipin Rawat has said, asserting that the military is prepared to tackle both external and internal threats.

Army sources said Rawat possibly meant China and Pakistan though the general mentioned neither.

"(The) Indian Army is fully ready for a two-and-a-half-front war," Rawat told news agency ANI in an interview but added that effective mechanisms were available to defuse an adverse situation.

"Even the Prime Minister has stated that for the last 40 years, not even a single bullet has been fired on the India-China border," he said.

The army chief had recently sparked controversy with his bullet-for-bullet comment on Kashmir and his defence of a field officer's use of a Kashmiri civilian as a human shield against stone throwers.

Last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had told a panel discussion in Russia that not a single bullet had been fired on the China-India border in the last 40 years despite the simmering boundary dispute between the neighbours.

H.S. Panag, a retired lieutenant general, told The Telegraph that India was facing a worst-case scenario in which "we are in conflict with Pakistan and China and facing internal conflict in Jammu and Kashmir".

India, he said, had a distinct edge over Pakistan in terms of capability, "as much as China has over us".

"This (conflict with neighbours) is avoidable but if it is thrust upon us then India should be prepared for it," he said.

Panag said the internal situation in Kashmir was not so bad that a conventional war needed to be waged. "I think the army chief was talking about a hypothetical scenario," he said.

Gen. Rawat has also accused Pakistan of using the social media to create unrest in Kashmir and said the situation in the Valley would improve soon.

He told ANI that a new strike corps, the 17 Strike Corps, was being raised specifically for mountain warfare. He spoke about the army's modernisation plans but said the army's preparations were not aimed at any specific country.

The army chief said the Modi government was aware of "our all needs and is supporting us in every manner".