Monthly Archives: August 2018

Satya Prakash

Tribunew News Service

New Delhi, July 30

CBI Director Alok Kumar Verma on Monday told the SC that the agency had filed two chargesheets against 15 security personnel in connection with fake encounter killings and 14 of them had been charged with murder, criminal conspiracy and destruction of evidence.Verma, who was summoned by the top court to explain the delay in implementing the court’s order, told a Bench headed by Justice Madan B Lokur that five more chargesheets/final reports would be filed by August-end.The Bench, which also included Justice UU Lalit, grilled him on various aspects of CBI Manual that provides for almost seven layers of scrutiny before a chargesheet is filed in a case. The agency had maintained that it was simply following its Manual and that was one of the major reasons of the delay.To cut short procedural delays, the Bench asked the CBI SIT to have only three-layered scrutiny before filing of final reports/chargesheets as the SIT chief himself was a Joint Director-rank officer.In view of serious allegations, petitioners demanded that the accused be arrested and subjected to custodial interrogation. However, the Bench left it to the discretion of the CBI Director to take the final call and posted the matter for further hearing on August 20. It asked Verma to remain personally present on the next date of hearing as well. Angry over non-compliance of its order to file chargesheets in seven cases relating to Manipur extra-judicial killings, the SC had on July 27 ordered the CBI Director to personally appear before it on Monday.

The elections in Pakistan have drawn tremendous interest in India, with almost 24×7 coverage by television channels although, ironically, no Indian journalist received a visa to cover the event from within Pakistan. Many Pakistani journalists were harnessed to do some justice to the news flow to India. At the outset, it was clear and is increasingly becoming even more transparent that the election was well orchestrated by the Pakistan army. It ensured a near-absolute victory of Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, such that a few smaller parties would need to join in to form a government that is sufficiently weak to be under the army’s control, without making it look anything illegal. That army, reputed to own a nation, is now into its third experiment having earlier dealt with the restiveness of Nawaz Sharif and the PPP leadership. Imran and his PTI will remain effectively under control until he too starts to grow wings. It’s from this assumption that any analysis of the future of Indo-Pak relations must flow. But before that, the election game may not yet be over. The PML-N, PPP and even Fazlur Rehman’s Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) are up in arms about the perceived blatant rigging and Punjab is where it has probably been rampant; that’s the PML-N territory. It may just not be the take it or leave it kind of result that the Army may have expected because voices are being raised even as we have heard not a sound from the international observers from the Commonwealth. So even as the army bullies its way to government formation, the curtains on the internal dynamics itself may not drop for some time. Pakistani civil society may be weak but PML-N street power in Punjab could be something to reckon with especially with its leader in jail.

Imran is familiar with India, has many friends from his earlier avatar and is considered an educated, erudite, sophisticated Pakistani celebratory with a ready and welcome presence at talk shows. However, in political terms that means nothing because he has changed personality as the chameleon to suit the political ambition he has been led into. He has been mouthing support for anti-blasphemy laws and generally playing to the galleries as expected with the electoral rhetoric and the political climate of the street. One would be unrealistic to expect from him anything different, at least in his first few years. The Pakistani realpolitik is army-driven to ensure that the army always remains the power behind the throne. To do that, the relationship with India must remain sufficiently on tenterhooks without crossing a given rubicon.

No one can fault Imran Khan for his initial statements which may generally be in the right direction but it’s also true that no designated head of government ever commences his tenure with threats of war or coercion; these are sweet nothings which people expect to hear.

He has stated his intention of taking two steps for every step that India takes towards durable peace. He would do well to remember that in 2014-15, PM Narendra Modi had taken more than two steps without a single one in response from Pakistan because the Pakistan army could not absorb a peace initiative. Having tracked Imran’s record of utterances in the recent past, people in India expect that with his purported change in thinking he would only play to the Pakistan army’s interests which essentially means no change in Pakistan’s policy towards India. For him to identify Kashmir as the core issue and mention human rights violations in the same breath reflect no change in thinking. If a real difference has to be made in the context of India-Pakistan relations, then early enough he must indicate what sort of action he intends to take against those radical elements long considered Pakistan’s strategic assets against India. Given his inclination towards supporting many of these radical elements, can he be expected to do anything transformational towards addressing India’s concern on terror? That is hardly likely, at least definitely not in the near future as India prepares to get to the starting blocks of its own elections. Any such attempt will be perceived negatively within Pakistan and will remain against the Pakistan army’s carefully crafted strategy. It will, however, also add to Modi’s popularity in India – something that Pakistan would consider completely counter to its interests.

The only silver lining on which many in India may continue to place their bets is the greylisting of Pakistan by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) a few weeks prior to the election, an event which got partially subsumed in the fervour of the election. Pakistan’s economy is in the dumps and the likelihood of Islamabad having to seek a bailout by the IMF does place it on the back foot. However, the international community has historically shown a propensity towards coercing Pakistan on terror and other related activities only up to a point and never beyond. Strategically, Pakistan continues to enjoy the status of a bridge nation, between China and the West, and between the sectarian divide within the Middle East. It also provides the proverbial path to a resolution on anything to do with Afghanistan. It has overcome strictures such as FATF greylisting in the past too and may therefore not entirely be inclined towards doing anything more than simply lobbying with the international community this time as well. That is a field it is adept at and Imran Khan’s suave presence may well help it even more.

India will have to wait and watch. If, however, against all assessment Imran Khan does turn out to be a Pakistani leader who can be his own man then nothing should keep us from backing him to attempt a long- required change in India-Pakistan relationship. The ball is in his hand and he must bowl it straight and not with the reverse swing for which he is famous.

The author commanded the 15 Corps in Jammu and Kashmir. Views expressed are personal.

Ambala, July 13

A 73-year-old woman was strangled to death at her house in Ambala Cantt on Thursday, the police have said.The deceased has been identified as Usha Devi. She was alone in the house. Her son, Colonel Sandeep Kumar, is posted in Rajasthan.On Thursday night, a neighbour visited Usha Devi’s house and found her dead. Her hands and legs were tied. There were injury marks on her head, and her mouth was gagged.The police said, “It appears miscreants had entered the house with the motive to loot, as her belongings were lying scattered in the room.” — TNS

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New Delhi, July 3

Army Chief General Bipin Rawat on Tuesday said decades of militancy had shattered the education system in Jammu and Kashmir and it was one of factors behind stone-throwing protests in the state.He was interacting with some students of Chhattisgarh, who were on a trip to Delhi, when one of the them asked him why there were frequent stone-throwing incidents in Kashmir.General Rawat replied that Kashmiris were being fed with misinformation that India was anti-Muslim and those who eat beef were being killed.“They try to shield terrorists. They throw stones as these are easily available. Unemployment is a factor for this. However, it is not unique to Kashmir, there is unemployment in other parts of the country as well but youngsters there don’t pelt stones.”“Education there (Kashmir) is shattered. Most of the schooling is done through madrassas, which cannot get you good jobs.”He said the Army had two ways of dealing with the situation. “One is the harsh way, the other is to make them understand that what they are doing is wrong. We bring some of the people from there to Delhi to show them that we don’t have the Army in every corner here as Delhi is peaceful. If Kashmir is also peaceful, the Army will be taken away from there.” — IANS

If one has to go by Imran Khan’s statements, after the establishment of his near certain future status as prime minister of Pakistan, most analysts in India would dismiss them as platitudes. We have heard much of these before, but not to be missed is the fact that early enough, Imran has expressed some concerns on Jammu and Kashmir. If these had been about alluding to potential peace and measures he would take towards promoting it, they may have probably reverberated quite positively in India. But what he spoke could be considered as stepping on Indian toes rather early. To have a measure of what may lie in store for the situation in Jammu and Kashmir in the future, we need to briefly delve into trends of the immediate past.

Imran Khan’s first speech was on 26 July 2018, coincidentally the anniversary of India’s victory over the Pakistan Army at the Kargil heights, an event which had completely fractured even the remnants of trust between the two countries. Over the last 19 years, Pakistan has given India little reason to restore any trust. Attempts by its political leadership to mend fences have invariably been scuttled by the all-pervading presence of the Pakistan Army. So that’s two elements that play a role in the India-Pakistan relationship with specific reference to Jammu and Kashmir – the Pakistan Army and the trust deficit. The third is the idea that by promoting calibrated violence in Jammu and Kashmir and sponsoring separatism, Pakistan can keep India on the back foot; the subset of this is an international campaign to paint India red on the issue of human rights in Jammu and Kashmir in an attempt to keep the issue alive in the eyes of the international community.

So is there anything Imran Khan is likely to do to dilute these issues? His election (if considered free and fair) cannot escape the stigma of the army’s support; if not by direct intervention, then at least, the deep influence it ensured through coercion of other parties. To build that partnership with the Pakistan Army, Imran Khan had to undergo a serious makeover from the international playboy image to one of a radical Islamist, fetching him titles such as Taliban Khan and Jihadi Khan. The promotion of Islamism (a euphemism for Islamic radicalism) has long been the Pakistan Army’s strategy to fight in Jammu and Kashmir through proxy using the jihadi route. It went wrong when some jihadis started to target Pakistan itself, but that has been largely corrected through hard internal security operations, against the so called ‘unfriendly jihadis’, where human rights were the last consideration. With all this, is there any likelihood that Imran Khan will go against the interests of the Pakistan Army which wishes to perpetuate its hold over Pakistan’s foreign and security policy and still retains another strain of radicals – ‘friendly jihadis’, to execute that.

Of course, it is not as if the arrival of Imran Khan is going to immediately lead to a drastic increase in attempts at enhancement of levels of violence at the LoC or the hinterland. However, an indicator that he continues to believe in Kashmiri separatism and will work towards that end is likely to give encouragement to elements in Kashmir to increase their pace of activities and work counter to our efforts to mainstream Kashmir’s society. The common thread still remains the Pakistan Army, which essentially orchestrated the rise of Imran Khan because the other mainstream parties got bolder as they experienced power for a longer duration. So, unless Imran can break out of the shackles of the Pakistan Army early enough, nothing is going to change as far as Pakistan’s India policy and specifically the Jammu and Kashmir policy is concerned.

Are there any chinks in this strategy, or the conditions which support it? Possibly three, with very slim openings. First are the strictures that the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has placed on Pakistan just a few weeks before the election while grey listing it. Pakistan is required to showcase measures it has undertaken to reduce or eliminate the financial networks for the support to terror links. It is well understood that its economy is now approaching a situation where a bailout may be necessary by international financial institutions; a bailout effort would be linked to the FATF strictures. It will therefore need to get more serious about displaying its intent of reining in all sponsored terror elements that it controls while targeting India and Afghanistan. However, much will depend upon India’s ability to network and dilute the large international support groups that Pakistan has been able to get on its side through constant lobbying over many years. It is through these networks that Pakistan has always escaped more serious targeting and sanctions from the international community.

The second slim opening is with relation to China, which has warmly welcomed the election of Imran Khan. China has invested a substantial amount of money in the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) in the hope that its efforts to reach the Indian Ocean through a safe and stable corridor will eventually fructify. That vision does not appear to be in the process of realisation, given Pakistan’s restive internal security situation. With a reset underway as far as Sino-Indian relations are concerned, China could be the one entity which could exercise greater influence towards a corresponding reset in India-Pakistan relations. It is unlikely to happen through an initiative from within Pakistan and will have to be externally driven with many nudges and pushes.

An economic collapse of Pakistan is the last thing China would wish to see, and to that end, it could play an important role to make the Pakistan leadership see the light as far as the positives of co-operation with India are concerned. This is unlikely to happen in a hurry as Pakistan’s India policy is too deeply embedded and linked to the interests of the Pakistan Army.

The third one is a shot in the dark. The more virulently anti-India jihadi elements that made attempts at political mainstreaming have not succeeded. Can this change their relationship with the Pakistan deep state? Perhaps just placing them in cold storage could be an option for Pakistan, which will also meet its needs for projecting a straighter face to the FATF. Weeding them out at this stage will be risky and unlikely to be palatable to a new government. That could at best be a temporary reprieve.

With some emerging order in Jammu and Kashmir with Governor’s rule, the Pakistan deep state could well opt for attempts to calibrate the situation to an upward spiral of violence both at the LoC and the hinterland while blaming India squarely, a game it is adept at. That would quite easily scuttle any fresh ideas that Imran Khan may have and get him more aligned with the Army’s strategy.

The author is a retired lieutenant general and former general officer commanding 15 and 21 Corps

Jaipur, July 18: This case has all the makings of a huge racket. Under the scanner of the Rajasthan ATS are over 3,000 gun licences that were allegedly issued in the name of Army personnel during their stint in the troubled state of Jammu and Kashmir. The ATS has now asked for the names of the personnel to be verified by the Army. ATS sources tell OneIndia that a gang that procures weapons illegally may have used the name of Army personnel. Representational Image It all began with Operation Jubaida, in which the Rajasthan ATS arrested 52 people after it was found that they had got gun licences issued from different districts in Jammu and Kashmir. It was also found that at least 3,367 gun licences were procured by using names of the Army personnel. It was also found that all the licences were issued by the respective Deputy Commissioners over the past decade. The ATS also found that no records were maintained for the same. Response awaited: The ATS had written letters to the Army, Indian Air Force, Navy, Border Security Force, CRPF, NCC, RPF, NDRF and the Coast Guard. While the ATS received a response from most, the Army submitted a list of 375 personnel. ATS officials say that the Army list however did not have the time period. The ATS says that the list needs to be more comprehensive and hence it had sent out another request to the Army. The ATS says it would need the entire list of personnel and also the time period of when the personnel had served in Jammu and Kashmir. This is a case which has major security implications and hence needs to be cracked, the ATS officer also said. The Navy on the other hand informed the ATS that out of the 26 personnel, only 14 cases were genuine. The ATS is now finding out how the remaining persons posed as Navy officials and secured the licence. In the IAF list, the credentials of 17 out of the 39 were found to be genuine. Out of the 548 personnel from the BSF, records for 471 were received of which cases of only 336 personnel were found to be correct. In the CRPF list out of the 424, 237 were correct. In the other lists, only 154 of the 387 personnel were found to be correct. Larger nexus: ATS officials say that this is a huge racket. It appears as though the names of many personnel have been picked at random and gun licences sourced in their names. Under the scanner are also those officials in J&K who could be hand in glove with this syndicate. Once we receive all the information, we could probe further into the matter, the official also added. This racket is rampant in Jammu and Kashmir and in the month of March 2018, the Jammu police busted a fake gun licence racket. Investigations led to the police recovering 52 fake gun licences and several blank licence forms. It was found that the accused persons were preparing both fake and forged gun licences by using the stamps of Army officials and those in the civil administration. The police conducted raids and arrested two persons in connection with this case. They were identified ass Taranjeet Singh and Satinder Singh, both residents of Jammu. The police had also recovered stamps of the Army and civil administration.

Read more at: https://www.oneindia.com/india/operation-jubaida-how-3367-gun-licences-were-procured-in-the-name-of-indian-army-personnel-2737306.html

Tribune News Service

, July 13Jammu

Northern Command chief Lt Gen Ranbir Singh underscored the importance of science and technology in attaining self-sufficiency in developing future technologies in India.He said the Army as an institution had vast opportunities to pursue various fields of science and technology.Lt Gen Ranbir Singh said this while delivering a penultimate lecture during the department of science and technology-sponsored “Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research” internship camp at Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University in Katra on Friday.This five-day camp, in which 322 young interns from all 10 districts of Jammu participated, concluded at the Katra university on Friday.Interacting with the participants, he highlighted the importance of such initiatives in ensuring that India attains self-sufficiency in developing future technologies on its own and its role in feeding the ‘Make in India’ programme.Speaking on the occasion, Vice Chancellor Sanjeev Jain said in a short span of time, the university had made a mark at the national level through its state-of-the-art infrastructure, highly qualified faculty and motivated students.The valedictory function of the camp was addressed by A Mukhopadhyay, adviser and scientist, department of science and technology, Government of India, who inspired the students to become nation builders by pursuing various challenging problems being faced by the society in the field.

Vijay Mohan

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 4

The Border Security Force’s (BSF) air wing will be back to its full strength after several years with six Mi-17 helicopters returning from Russia following a major overhaul, giving a much-needed fillip to air support for anti-Naxal operations and internal security duties. “The helicopters would be re-joining the fleet in July,” BSF Director General, KK Sharma, told The Tribune during his visit to Chandigarh. “They had been sent to Russia for their periodic overhaul,” he added.The air wing’s mandate includes logistic air support to Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) under the Home Ministry, anti-Naxal and counter-insurgency operations, air maintenance of remote border outposts, casualty evacuation, disaster relief operations as well as VVIP transport. A large number of battalions from various CAPFs are deployed for combating Left-Wing Extremism and helicopters provide them an important support element.The BSF, the only CAPF to have an air wing, has a mixed fleet of fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft comprising one Embraer 135 business jet, two ageing HS-748 Avro aircraft, a Cheetah, six Mi-17 1V, eight Mi-17 V5 and six Dhruv helicopters. A King Air light aircraft operated by it had crashed in 2015. The aircraft operate from several airbases across the country.The air wing, set up in 1969, has in the recent past faced issues of manpower as well as technical support. Earlier, the BSF was entirely dependent on air crew drawn from the Air Force, but it has now started to induct its own pilots.