Dhaka: Putting an end to the question whether Army should be deployed to tackle Maoists in India, the union minister and former chief of Army staff of the country, General VK Singh said, ‘Army has to be deployed only when there is a threat to national security, particularly from any other country,’ The Times of India reported on Tuesday.

General Singh said these while responding to questions during a discussion on his autobiography ‘Courage and Conviction’ at a film festival at Chhattisgarh in India on Tuesday.

‘If we deploy Army in places where problems have cropped up due to socio-political reasons, it could adversely affect the image of the forces,’ he said.

Last week, Maoists had unleashed several attacks on Indian law enforcers, killing at least 10 of its personnel, in Chhattishgarh.

Gen Singh said that as a chief of Army, he had made this stand clear to the then union home minister P Chidambaram.