Colonel Amresh Bhatnagar(Retd) was commissioned in Regiment of Artillery in Dec 1975.He has varied experience in Command and Staff and has been instructor in School of Artillery.He commanded 43 Field Regiment in both peace and J&k.He has been working as GM in manufacturing company at Nashik since Feb 2009 after superannuation.
Manmeet Singh Gill
Tribune News Service
Amritsar, May 10
Thousands of farmers tilling around 20,000 acres of land across the barbed fence on the India-Pakistan border in the state are paying the price for heroin smuggling by a few anti-social elements as they do not get ample time to tend to their crops. Even they are seen with the eye of suspicion, their demands for relaxation in time and norms are met with disdain.The agitated farmers have now decided to initiate protests against the BSF from June 1. The farmer representatives from six districts — Amritsar, Tarn Taran, Gurdaspur, Pathankot, Ferozepur and Fazilka — after a meeting here today said though rules allowed them to work in their fields from 8 am to 5 pm, these were seldom followed by the BSF.“The BSF officials allow farmers to go to their fields from 10 am to 2:30 pm only. On Sundays and other holidays, besides foggy days, farmers are not allowed there,” said Makhan Singh of Rajatal village, near here.Another farmer Bir Singh of Kakkar village, near Ajnala, said: “Even a lot of time is wasted in checking and completing formalities. Further, all entry gates are not opened regularly. As a result, the farmers had to waste a lot of time in reaching their fields.”Talking about a few arbitrary decisions of the BSF, farmers complained that while tractors were allowed, animal-pulled carts were restricted. The farmers use carts to bring fodder for animals.“Rules say that crops higher than 4 feet are not allowed but the BSF also objects to crops such as potato, turmeric or other such crops which do not reach 4-m height. The arbitrary decisions taken at the local level result in harassment of farmers,” said Rattan Singh Randhawa of the Border Area Sangharsh Committee, which is spearheading the movement.Ramesh Wadera of Fazilka said: “At some places along the border, the fence is around 4 km on the Indian side. A final solution to the problem could be in shifting the fence further towards the Pakistan side so that we do not have to cross to the other side.”A three-member high-power committee constituted by the state government after intervention of the high court had visited border areas in February 2014. The committee in its report had also mentioned problems faced by farmers with regard to restrictions imposed by the BSF on entry timings and closure of gates.“The fact that the committee was constituted on government orders and it had submitted the report listing all problems we are discussing today, is enough to establish that the government already knows about the hardships. But still it has failed to intervene to find any solution,” said Kabal Singh Rajoke, another prominent leader of farmers.
Aizawl, May 5
An Assam Rifles Commandant, Col Jasjit Singh, was today arrested for allegedly being involved in a highway robbery in which his men allegedly decamped with Rs 14.5 crore worth of gold bars smuggled from Myanmar.Col Singh, the Commandant of the Aizawl-based 39th battalion, was suspended by Brig TC Malhotra, DIG (Range), Commander of the Aizawl-based 23 Sector of the Assam Rifles in Mizoram. The police alleged that Singh ordered his men, armed with sophisticated weapons, to waylay a consignment of smuggled gold biscuits on the outskirts of Aizawl city on the night of December 14 last year.The robbery came to light when the driver of the vehicle, Lalnunfela, filed an FIR at the Aizawl police station on April 21 alleging that his vehicle was waylaid by armed people from the 39 Assam Rifles who, the police said, decamped with 52 gold biscuits worth Rs 14.5 crore. The fate of the stolen gold bars was not known.Lalnunfela mentioned in the FIR that he was threatened at gunpoint by the assailants and was asked to keep his mouth shut, and it was only after being persuaded by his friends that he decided to inform the police.The eight Assam Rifles jawans, accused of participating in the dacoity on December 14 and now in custody, reportedly told their interrogators that they committed the crime after receiving orders from the Commandant.Singh today applied for anticipatory bail, which was rejected by District and Sessions Judge Lucy Lalrinthari and he was arrested on the court premises. Brig Malhotra refused to comment, saying the matter was “sub-judice”.The police had arrested four people, including a former student leader and a businessman on April 23 and 24. — PTI
Lt-Gen Bhopinder Singh
Gen.Raheel Sharif’s anti-corruption drive and the resultant moral high ground puts him in a position of strength vis-a- vis Nawaz Sharif. Given the history of Pakistan’s civil-army ties, it remains to be seen which Sharif will finally emerge as the winner.
Civil-military shadowboxing is an old hat in Pakistan, with a brazen democracy-be-damned approach of the Pakistani generals who have formally ruled for 36 out of the 69 years of independence. In 1958, the first Pakistani President Iskandar Mirza dismissed the government of the day and appointed his Commander-in-Chief Ayub Khan as the Martial Law Administrator, only to see Ayub depose Iskandar Mirza within 13 days and assume Presidentship. In 1976, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto handpicked a “safe” Mohajir, Zia-ul-Haq as his Chief of Staff — only to get executed by his protégé within two years. Later in 1991, Nawaz Sharif too would pull the wrong bunny out of the hat and install the third-in-line Pervez Musharraf as his Chief of Army Staff, only to get ousted and exiled by Musharraf by end-2000.Circa 2016 is no different — serendipitous namesakes representing the two conflicting sides of the Pakistani establishment, with Nawaz Sharif as the Prime Minister in Islamabad to General Raheel Sharif ensconced in the garrison town of Rawalpindi, hardly 20 km down the Muree Road. Tell-tale signs of mutual and institutional discomfort between the two revolve around the appropriation as the principal voice on the two vectors that dominate Pakistani narrative, internal administration (read, security and corruption) and external affairs (ummah and Kashmir) — on both accounts, the politico/civil classes are on the backfoot against the steely frame of the ramrod straight, medal-chested and martially mustachioed Raheel Sharif leading the battle of perceptions, by miles. In feudal Pakistan, Punjabi lineage with a war-decorated family to boot (Raheel Sharif’s elder brother Major Rana Shabbir Sharif, was the recipient of Pakistan’s highest gallantry award, Nishan-e-Haider), rolls more generously in the desperate eyes of the Pakistani masses than Nawaz Sharif’s stock that features, amongst other infamies, in the recent Panama expose. Pakistan’s official warrant of precedence puts the Chief of Army Staff, Raheel Sharif at Article 6 or below 26 other constitutional appointments, (including some like Deputy Speaker to the National Assembly or Chairman Consultative Committee on economic policy and even below advisors and special assistants to the Prime Minister) — however, constitutional propriety does not count for much in Pakistan and with Raheel Sharif making a dash to Washington, Riyadh, Beijing or Kabul at his free will to iron-fence the contours of Pakistani foreign policy, everyone knows who the real McCoy in Pakistan is. The first port of calling in Pakistan for the newly elected President of Afghanistan Ashraf Ghani in 2014, was the “Army House” and not the Prime Minister or the President. For a nation reeling under simultaneous tumults of economic, sectarian and terror related severities — it is critical to be seen as decisive, assertive and authoritative. His unmistakable fingerprints in devising the Zarb-e-Azb operations in 2014 to take on the might of the Taliban, devising the National Action Plan (NAP), bringing the rogue elements in Karachi under control and making his omnipresence felt from Baluchistan to the Swat valley has given him a cult-like status as the ultimate vanguard to all ills afflicting Pakistan.Raheel Sharif has now upped the ante with a move that promises moral high ground vis-à-vis the politicos on the sticky ground of corruption — his recent dismissal from service of six army officers, including a Lt-Gen, a Maj-Gen, three brigadiers and a Lt-Col is unprecedented in the scale and seniority of the Stalinistic purge. Such an action is in sharp contrast to the dilly-dallying of the civilian authorities who tom-tom the dithering sub-continental line of “political conspiracy”, whilst the hapless masses struggle to comprehend the legitimate brilliance of a Nawaz Sharif whose officially declared assets go up from Rs 166 million in 2011 to around Rs 2 billion in a span of four years (obviously, not including the Panama count). Such negative perceptions of civil/politico capabilities have allowed the open encroachment of the military uniforms in the judicial domain with the codification and institutionalisation of the supremacy through “general-heavy” apex committees, and no one complains. Credible conspiracy theorists attribute this undeclared coup of sorts to the backroom mechanisations that do not shy away from using the services of an alternative political platforms like Imran Khan’s Tehreek-e-Insaaf or Tahir Ul Qadri’s followers to arm-twist Nawaz Sharif with a popular and pliant political alternative. The recent surge in Raheel Sharif’s popularity has emboldened him to position his trusted confidantes in key positions like the ISI head, Lt-Gen Rizwan Akhtar or more crucially with the appointment of his fellow clansmen, Lt- Gen Naseer Khan Janjua as the NSA — the civilian corridors of powers are increasingly seeing burly soldiers who have shed their military fatigues and adorn the civilian-appropriate attires. The image overdrive for Raheel Sharif is carefully crafted, communicated and choreographed by the Army’s public relations wings — Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) — timely snippets of the Army Chief and his swagger across the nation are regularly bombarded via a twitter handle that has the subscription equivalent to the combined numbers of the top three English newspapers!Perhaps the only high-profile visitor to give General Raheel Sharif a miss in Pakistan was the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the subsequent confusion and frustration emanating from the perennial “one-step-forward-and-two-steps-behind” reality can be attributed to the limited mandate of the other Sharif, Nawaz Sharif to deliver on his word and intent — a reality check of the actual space for the civil/politicos to take independent decisions on domestic and foreign policy matters. Unlike the 1980s, when General Zia-ul-Haq appropriated religion as an means of relevance and assertion — it is a space that is now occupied by mullahs who are inimical to both the civil/politico classes, as indeed to the military and its generals —hence, the “moral high-ground” is the definitive space that subsumes the laundry list of woes besetting Pakistan’s masses today (e.g. controlling bloody violence, corruption and secessionist tendencies). Fear of international opprobrium may restrain Raheel Sharif from doing a Pervez Musharraf immediately, but with the retirement deadline of Raheel Sharif in September 2016 looming large, the real Sharif may actually stand up soon, and formally so. The writer is a former Lt-Governor of Andaman and Nicobar Islands & Puducherry
Ravinder Saini
Tribune News Service
Dhakla (Jhajjar), May 3
Nearly a century after a Haryana braveheart laid down his life fighting for the British in Egypt, the soil from the grave of the World War-I hero was brought to his native village today.Agriculture and Irrigation Minister Om Prakash Dhankar brought the soil from the grave of Risaldar Badlu Ram, a recipient of the Victoria Cross, to Jhajjar this morning amid raising of patriotic slogans by locals.The soil was later taken to his native village, Dhakla, in a procession. Dhankar laid the foundation stone of the Badlu Ram Memorial as contingents of the Army and police fired a volley of shots into the air.The minister said an official delegation from the state had gone to Egypt to participate in a seminar on “Sustainable farming and water management during climate change”. “I got a chance to visit a war memorial to Indian soldiers who had sacrificed their lives during World War-I. I feel proud to have brought back a symbol of Badlu Ram from the Heliopolis War Cemetery in Cairo (Egypt),” said Dhankar.
Sukhmeet Bhasin
Tribune News Service
Bathinda, May 26
The kin of sepoy Jugraj Singh who was declared dead in the 1971 Indo-Pak war today claimed that the former was alive and languishing in a Pakistan jail. They demanded that the Ministry of Defence should initiate step to release Jugraj from jail. Singh hails from Jeeda village in Bathinda district.Ex- servicemen Welfare Union state president Capt Bhagwant Singh Bhatti, Jugraj’s wife Gurmail Kaur, daughter Paramjit Kaur and son-in-law Lakhvir Singh said here today that soldier Jugraj joined the Bombay Engineer Group and after training was shifted to 102 Engineer Regiment.They stated that in 1971 Indo-Pak war, Jugraj Singh’s regiment was deployed at Ferozepur sector and during the war they received a letter from the regiment in which they were informed that he had died when a shell exploded on December 3, 1971, but his body could not be recovered.Paramjit said they were getting news that some soldiers had been captured by the Pakistan army and are lodged in jail there, so they were hoping that he is alive in some Pakistani jail.She said that they got to know that Indian spy, Satish Kumar, a resident of Ferozepur had returned after spending 12 years in a Pakistan jail and they had met him in 2012.She said they showed Kumar some photos of her father and he told them that he had met her father in the Shahi Qila in Lahore in 1974. Satish Kumar has also given an affidavit stating the same to the family.She also told that in 2004, they got information on All India Radio that he was alive in a Pakistan jail. They demanded that defence ministry should take up this issue with Pakistan government at the earliest and get Jugraj Singh released from jail. They also said that they have written to Deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal, former PM Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi, but to no avail.
The marks on the bodies of the militants do not indicate that they were killed today. It seems they have been killed 6-7 days ago and brought here KUPWARA RESIDENTS
SRINAGAR: An army soldier, who was wounded during an encounter with militants in north Kashmir’s Kupwara district on Saturday, died on Sunday.
Meanwhile, thousands of people participated in the funeral of the five militants, who were killed in the encounter.
An army spokesman said Naik Gawade Pandurang Mahadev sustained head injuries during the gunfight in Chak Drugmulla village of Kupwara and was evacuated to 92 Base Hospital for treatment where he succumbed to his injuries on Sunday.
“He made a supreme sacrifice while fighting valiantly with the terrorists in Drugmulla village on May 21,” the spokesman said.
The mortal remains of the soldier will be flown to his village in Sindudurg district of Maharashtra after necessary formalities. Security forces said five militants were killed and two soldiers were wounded in a fierce gun battle in Drugmulla on Saturday.
‘STAGED GUNFIGHT’
On Sunday, thousands of people from the villages of Kupwara converged at Chak Drugmulla to participate in the funeral procession of the militants amid profreedom slogans.
After the militants were laid to rest in the morning, locals took to streets to protest.
Some locals alleged that the militants were killed in a “staged gun fight”. They said the state of dead bodies of the militants indicated that “they might have been killed a week back”. “The marks on the bodies of the militants do not indicate that they were killed today. It seems they have been killed 6-7 days ago and brought here,” the residents alleged.
Kupwara superintendent of police Aijaz Ahmad denied the allegations: “This is not true.” He said the militants were foreigners and seem to have infiltrated recently. Internet services were also suspended in Kupwara as authorities feared that situation could escalate owing to the spread of rumours.
WASHINGTON: Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour was killed in a US drone strike in Pakistan, the Afghanistan government said Sunday. The US announced it had targeted the terror outfit’s chief but gave no official confirmation of his death.
Mansour — who took charge of the Taliban after Mullah Omar’s death became public in 2015 — posed a “continuing, imminent threat” to US personnel and Afghans, secretary of state John Kerry said. “If people want to stand in the way of peace, continue to threaten and kill and blow people up, we have no recourse but to respond and I think we responded appropriately.”
US department of defense press secretary Peter Cook said in a statement Saturday, “Today, the department of defense conducted an airstrike that targeted Taliban leader Mullah Mansour in a remote area of the AfghanistanPakistan border region. We are still assessing the results of the strike and will provide more information as it becomes available.” But unidentified officials told US media they believed Mansour was killed, along with another Taliban figure, when his convoy was attacked by multiple drones. The strike was reportedly authorised by President Barack Obama. Confirming the death, Afghan chief executive Abdullah Abdullah tweeted, “Taliban leader Akhtar Mansour was killed in a drone strike in Quetta, Pakistan, at 04.30pm yesterday.” He said the terror chief ’s car was attacked in Dahl Bandin, referring to a district in Pakistan’s Balochistan province. Kerry said the leaders of both Pakistan and Afghanistan were notified of the airstrike. He said he’d spoken to Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif by phone.
Pakistan’s foreign office confirmed “this information was shared with the PM and the chief of army staff after the drone strike”. “While further investigations are being carried out, Pakistan wishes to once again state the drone attack was a violation of its sovereignty,” it said in a statement.
The foreign office said one Wali Muhammad, carrying a Pakistani passport and ID card, had entered Pakistan from the Taftan border on May 21. His passport bore a valid Iranian visa. He was travelling in a vehicle hired from a transport company in Taftan. This vehicle was found destroyed along the border with Afghanistan.
The driver, it said, has been identified as Muhammad Azam while the “identity of the second body is being verified”. There was no official statement from the Taliban.
The location of the attack would fuel further anger against Pakistan, often accused of harbouring terrorists. Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was found and killed by US special forces in a hideout in Abbottabad in 2011. Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, the 9/11 mastermind, was caught in Faisalabad in 2003. And Americans believe the entire Haqqani Network leadership is based in Pakistan. “Since the death of Mullah Omar and Mansour’s assumption of leadership, the Taliban have conducted many attacks that have resulted in the death of tens of thousands of Afghan civilians and security forces as well as numerous US and coalition personnel,” Cook said.
He called Mansour “an obstacle to peace and reconciliation between the government of Afghanistan and the Taliban”. Mansour also integrated the Haqqani Network, an independent arm of the Taliban, into the outfit, according its leader Sirajuddin Haqqani a larger role. According to reports and analysts, Haqqani now calls the shots in planning Taliban military operations in Afghanistan, targeting the local government and US-led coalition forces.
