Jammu, February 13

A 30-year-old soldier allegedly committed suicide by shooting himself with his service rifle at an Army camp here, a police official said on Wednesday.

Sepoy Sandeep Singh, a resident of Punjab, was on guard duty at a post in a transit camp at Panama Chowk where he shot himself in the head on Tuesday, the official said.

His colleagues rushed to the scene on hearing the gunshot and found him dead on the spot, he said.

The body was handed over to the Army for last rites after completion of the legal formalities, the official said. The motive behind Singh taking the extreme step is yet to be ascertained, he said. PTI

Gen. Bipin Rawat issued the direction after visiting the forward locations along the LoC and international border in Jammu and Kashmir and several border posts in Rajasthan.

New Delhi: Army Chief Gen. Bipin Rawat has directed army personnel deployed along the border with Pakistan to remain prepared for all eventualities in close coordination with the Indian Air Force, officials said.

Gen. Rawat issued the direction after visiting the forward locations along the LoC and international border in Jammu and Kashmir and several border posts in Rajasthan.

During the visit, the Army Chief was briefed on the prevailing security scenario and preparedness of the formations to deal with any eventualities.
“The Army Chief expressed his complete confidence in the capabilities of the Indian Army to thwart any nefarious design of Pakistan,” the Army said.

He praised high state of morale of troops and instructed them to remain prepared for all eventualities in close coordination with the Air Force,” it said in a statement.

In Rajasthan, Gen. Rawat visited forward locations like Barmer and Suratgarh to review the operational deployment. Tensions between the two countries escalated after Indian fighters bombed terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed’s biggest training camp near Balakot deep inside Pakistan on February 26.

Pakistan retaliated by attempting to target Indian military installations on February 27. However, the IAF thwarted their plans.

The Indian strike on the JeM camp came 12 days after the terror outfit claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on a CRPF convoy in Kashmir, killing 40 soldiers

Nation’s sovereignty intact because of Indian Army: Mishra

ITANAGAR, Feb 3: Governor BD Mishra hailed the role of the Indian Army in defending the nation’s sovereignty.
“It is because of the Indian Army that the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of the nation are intact,” said Mishra during a meeting with Chief of the Army Staff (COAS), Gen Bipin Rawat, at the Raj Bhavan here on Sunday.
The governor conveyed the goodwill of the people of Arunachal Pradesh to the general for the latter’s gesture to increase
vacancies for Arunachalee youths in the army. He also mentioned the initiative of the 17th battalion of the Rajputana Rifles in Gelemo village in Upper Subansiri, where they opened a primary school.
Handing over a report about the Pay Back to Society Group (PBSG), Mishra commended Gen Rawat’s good gesture to help the PBSG.
The COAS praised the people of Arunachal Pradesh, saying they have always helped the Indian Army in a big way. He also said there are many “very good” officers from Arunachal in the armed forces.
The army chief felicitated four meritorious students, Mihin Ronya (Rajiv Gandhi Government Polytechnic College), Miti Perme (DNGC), Rajiv Ranjan Ray (NERIST) and Joychen Kenglang (NIT).
The governor’s wife Neelam Misra presented a short film on loin loom weaving to Army Wives Welfare Association president Madhulika Rawat, for the benefit of the army wives.
Students from the Donyi Polo Mission School for the Hearing and Visually Impaired, RGU, the NERIST and the NIT, and artist Mibi Nyodu presented colourful cultural programmes depicting the cultural heritage of Arunachal.
Earlier, in the afternoon, the general and his wife planted a palm tree in the Raj Bhavan premises. (Raj Bhavan)

Avneet Kaur

Jalandhar, February 27

Hailing the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, for granting permission to the Indian armed forces to decide on time and place for action against the perpetrators of the Pulwama attack, Air Vice-Marshal (retd) Sarvjit Hothi of Jalandhar said, “The Indian armed forces be it the Army, the Navy or Air Force, are always ready for such actions. But doing anything across the border is purely a political decision.”

He said, “An airstrike is always a result of a precise planning, hard intelligence and understanding of the area targeted. The demography and the kind of infrastructure are studied properly before executing an airstrike.”

He said every action was planned based on intelligence information, including the timing of bombing the area.

Taking on terrorists through airstrikes is extremely difficult as one second delay in action could be fatal, he added.

“The pilots hold a great responsibility as during an airstrike, the risk of being shot down is involved. You can be shot down in the air and you can be shot down from the ground. And for fighting aircrafts, even a small shot can mean a lot. If there is a strategic hit, it can be fatal as well,” said Air Vice-Marshal (retd) Hothi, who was part of the 10-member pilot crew selected for flying the elite light fighter aircraft — Gnat — in 1971.

Sharing his wartime experiences of 1971, Hothi said, “We were getting training in Jamnagar and increasing our flying hours to be fully operational when the war came. I was among the select pilots who got picked up for flying Gnats. We were inducted in the 2 Squadron that was then based in Ambala. Amritsar was our forward base just 25 km from the border.”

Narrating his one of the risky encounters, Hothi said, “One day when I had just taken off, I saw a Mirage of Pakistan just passed by on the gun side. My commander gave me orders to shoot it. But since my speed was just 180 mph, which was too less and there was another Gnat following me, I could neither turn back nor was capable of overtaking it. By the time I was in the attack mode, I was already over Lahore.”

On asked about the reason for choosing the Mirage 2000 for the strike, Hothi said, “You have to collect the right weapon to destroy the target and then you decide which aircraft can carry this weapon. And for such a strike, the best capability is the Mirage 2000 and therefore it was chosen.”

Maj Gen Ashok K Mehta (Retd) & Lt Gen Kamal Davar (retd)

Maj Gen Ashok K Mehta (Retd)
former GoC, IPKF, Sri Lanka

I got to know of George Fernandes much before I got to know him and he became the Defence Minister. In those days, he was highly suspicious and distrustful of the military, especially over its alleged abuse of human rights in Kashmir. After I retired and George saab took over as the Defence Minister, we became friends. I joined his extended family, which consisted of refugees from Tibet and the North-East; a couple of Alsatians; Durga Bahadur, his Gorkha cook; mounds of books; and of course, his party colleague Jaya Jaitley. Willy-nilly, I became the Defence Minister’s self-appointed military adviser.

As someone who espoused disarmament, his first test came during the Pokhran nuclear tests, which he welcomed. He shot off a letter to then US President Bill Clinton, attributing the tests to China being ‘enemy No. 1’, a slight that riled Beijing no end. Later, his good friend, then Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh, had to go to China to make amends and state that China was not a threat to India. Fernandes’ sympathy for the Tibetan cause was undiluted, especially as the Dalai Lama and actor Richard Gere were frequent visitors to his Krishna Menon Marg bungalow. During the Kargil war, he protected the Army high command from Opposition attacks on intelligence lapses and made 35 visits to Kargil during the 90-day skirmish. He played a stellar role in the implementation of the Kargil Review Committee report, especially on defence modernisation and improving the living conditions and allowances of soldiers.

For Fernandes, it was ‘soldier first’. The highest battlefield, Siachen, became his datum. Every Christmas, cakes baked in his home town Mangalore were taken by him to Siachen, which he visited as many as 18 times. When the supply of snow mobiles was delayed, he despatched defaulting bureaucrats to Siachen to feel the hardship and pain of soldiers at 20,000 ft. He never left room for the service chiefs to complain and never interfered in the working of the promotion boards, allowing the chiefs full autonomy. In 2000, he launched the concept of a limited war under the nuclear overhang to combat Pakistan’s role in cross-border terrorism.

Fernandes had his share of alleged scams — the Tehelka sting operation, Barak missiles and Coffingate. It was his idea to hand over the bodies of soldiers to their kin in imported-from-US aluminium coffins (allegedly overpriced) instead of cremating them in the battle zone. He had to temporarily step down and his portfolio was taken over by Jaswant Singh till he was cleared of the charges. Under his watch, then Navy Chief, Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat, was dismissed for disobedience of government orders, which the latter claimed in court were ‘unimplementable’ according to the Navy Act.

Though spartan in habits, George saab was a great host who never discouraged good use of make-happy beverages. As he was a teetotaller, his gifts would be sent to Jaswant Singh. The modernisation of his ‘frayed kurta’ wardrobe kept pace with the modernisation of the soldier. On a visit to Vietnam, he crawled through the secret Cu Chi tunnels used by Viet Cong, to the surprised delight of his hosts. As the Defence Minister, he was twice strip-searched in the US, for which the American administration offered apologies. But it was water off a duck’s back as he had been through worse treatment during the Emergency. George saab lived a full life. His role as a popular and weighty Defence Minister has not been acknowledged commensurate with his contribution to improving the soldiers’ lot.

Lt Gen Kamal Davar (retd)
First chief of India’s Defence Intelligence Agency

Could anyone imagine a firebrand trade unionist, anti-Emergency crusader, a genuine socialist with an unkempt appearance and no known background in security matters fitting smoothly into the challenging portfolio of India’s Defence Minister? Then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who surprised the nation by appointing George Fernandes as the Raksha Mantri, would have been himself pleasantly taken aback at the latter’s transition from a fiery politician of the streets to a minister at home with the spit and polish of the armed forces. A key member of Vajpayee’s Cabinet, it was during his tenure that the 1998 nuclear tests were conducted and the nation successfully fought the Pakistan-sponsored Kargil war in 1999.

As a follow-up of the post-Kargil war defence reforms, I had the privilege to raise the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) in 2002 and thus interacted with him frequently as his principal military intelligence adviser. He was an uncommon individual who rose above bureaucratic advice and respected the legitimate aspirations of the three services.

On March 6, 2002, a day after the gazette notification on the DIA was issued, I went to the Defence Minister’s office for a courtesy call. He promised me all assistance to raise the DIA speedily and effectively. And he kept his word.

His senior staff would tell me that he would read our analyses, especially the Quarterly Intelligence Analyses, which was the last document he went through before going to sleep. He was always well-informed and greatly appreciated intelligence inputs from the DIA. He would ask piercing questions and, unlike most politicians, who are only interested in electioneering, he was the quintessential professional Raksha Mantri with a wide vision, well-versed in history and geopolitics.

Fernandes was well known to a large number of political leaders around the globe. They admired his straight talk. This was evident when I accompanied him to the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. The US delegation led by their Secretary of State and other high-ranking officials had called upon him to request the Government of India to exercise restraint and not mount operations against Pakistan during the Operation Parakram phase. He did give them a piece of his mind, highlighting Pakistan’s incessant terror acts against India. At a formal dinner at the Singapore President’s palace, he complimented me, dressed in my blue patrols, saying, “General, you are looking dashing.” He appeared immensely pleased when I said: “Sir, I better be as I am accompanying the Defence Minister of India!”

He made countless visits to Ladakh and the Siachen Glacier units to interact with the jawans. He would say that he always felt rejuvenated meeting the soldiers. He had earlier ordered his AC room-ensconced bureaucrats to visit Siachen to see the difficult conditions in which the soldiers were operating.

On my farewell visit to his office, he joked, “How can you retire?” I told him, “Sir, we all have to superannuate when we are 60.” I carried with me a classified four-page letter recommending the steps the government must take to sharpen our arsenal and intelligence. He speedily glanced through the letter and said, “General, we had all unanimously decided to establish the institution of the Chief of Defence Staff, but PM Vajpayee changed his mind twice.” Fernandes felt that Vajpayee’s powerful National Security Adviser (NSA) and Principal Secretary Brajesh Mishra was largely instrumental in making the PM change his mind.

Easily one of India’s finest Defence Ministers, Fernandes was unlike the common rung of politicians. All those who interacted with him admired him for his commitment to national security.

Jupinderjit Singh

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 1

While the nation is in a patriotic frenzy over airstrikes against Pakistan, the Haryana-based family of Punjab Police Inspector Hari Ram— who achieved martyrdom in the 1965 Indo-Pakistan war at the Jammu frontier — has been awaiting land compensation for more than five decades.

The trouble in this peculiar case is that none of the three states — Punjab, Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir — owns up the martyr. The Army and the paramilitary forces too have expressed helplessness in the matter as the martyr was not part of their force.

His son Varinder Kumar Saini, who runs an electrical equipment repair shop in Tohana in Fatehabad district of Haryana, is struggling to get the compensation.

He says his father Inspector Hari Ram was posted with the Punjab Police before Haryana came into being. In 1965, he was with the Third Battalion which was called to the Jammu frontier to defend the border against Pakistan invasion. At that time, the Border Security Force (BSF) was yet to be raised and policemen assisted the Army on the border. “My father achieved martyrdom in the Chhamb sector in Jammu. My mother was given pension and compensation by the Punjab Government and monetary compensation by Jammu and Kashmir.”

However, some state governments gave land to the Indian Army soldiers prompting the martyr’s family to apply as well. Saini says their residence fell in Haryana after reorganisation of Punjab. But the Haryana Government refused to acknowledge him as a state resident.

When he moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court, he was asked to approach Punjab too. However, the Punjab Police headquarters gave him a shocking reply that there was no record available about his father’s service with the Punjab Police. A letter written to him by the DGP office said the Third Battalion of Punjab Police was merged with the Central Reserve Battalion Force (CRPF) and the record of all men was handed over to the CRPF. The CRPF in its reply said they don’t have record of the martyr or other men from the Third Battalion.

Meanwhile, the government of J&K said it was the duty of the parent state to provide land in compensation. Saini cited examples of soldiers who were given land by the Haryana or Punjab governments, saying he had been denied the benefit as his father was not a soldier but a policeman. Officials with the police department of Punjab and Haryana said they had replied to Varinder Saini on the status of the case and had nothing more to add.

The case

Inspector Hari Ram achieved martyrdom in the 1965 Indo-Pakistan war at the Jammu frontier. His son says Hari Ram was posted with the Punjab Police before Haryana came into being. In 1965, he was with the Third Battalion which was called to Jammu to defend the border against Pakistan invasion.

It is unlikely that the Balakot air strike will prove to be an effective deterrent

CMDE C Uday Bhaskar (retd)
Director of Society for Policy Studies

The post-Pulwama-Balakot  sequence of events has acquired a complex contour and is playing out on many tracks, including the most visible in the collective Indian consciousness — the status of the IAF pilot, Wg Cdr Abhinandan Varthaman, and his return to India.

It may now be inferred that the  very brief and Twitter-like reference by US President Donald Trump, who indicated that there could be a ‘decent’ and ‘attractive’ development in relation to the tension currently prevailing between India and Pakistan was a hint about what would soon follow in relation to the captive pilot. It merits recall that the closure of the 1999 Kargil war was  enabled by the then US President Bill Clinton and 2019 corresponds to this pattern but less visibly so. The one other strand this time that may sour the US-Pakistan bilateral ties is the use of F-16 aircraft by Pakistan in breach of its contractual obligations but that is an issue that will have to be addressed separately.

The loss of a MiG aircraft and the manner in which Pakistan PM Imran Khan has burnished his profile as a ‘mature’ leader and a man of peace have no doubt occupied media attention — TV particularly — but are more tactical issues that are transient in  nature.

The more abiding challenge to India is the Balakot punctuation in reference to the proxy war being waged against the country,  wherein terrorism, as represented by the Pulwama tragedy, is the manifestation.

Will Balakot and the resolve now being demonstrated by PM Modi make a tangible difference to prevent another attack? The answer is probably not. 

The reason for this less than optimistic outlook stems from the nature of the terrorism challenge that India is seeking to address in the Pulwama-Balakot trajectory. It may be recalled that the Pulwama attack took place after Uri (September 2016) and the question that arises is whether striking a terror camp through the use of air power can be an effective deterrent against the non-state actors in Pakistan.

On the current evidence and past experience, it is unlikely and invalid to expect that one carefully carried out air strike in Balakot will prove to be that effective deterrent. The Pakistani response where it deployed its own air power and the dog-fight that ensued between the MiG and the F-16 are symbolic of the costs that will have to be incurred as the military path acquires its own dynamics.

In the event that the current situation returns to the earlier default orientation of the bilateral relationship and Pakistan convinces itself that India was forced to ‘blink’ first, the strategic objective of Balakot could turn detrimental. The Indian signal is that the decision to use air power to thwart a terror attack is the new median. The sub-text being Modi’s resoluteness.

However, the dominant narrative across the LoC is that the ‘naya Pakistan’ led by PM Imran Khan has stood firm against Indian aggression and the local social media had its fair share of ‘Captain’ Imran bowling the Abhinandan googly and outwitting his Indian counterpart. Triumphalism clearly permeates the subcontinent in a similar manner.

The deeper threat to India is the certitude in the GHQ Rawalpindi that Pakistan can continue to selectively nurture terror groups and that the impunity accorded to Islamabad by the global community will continue.

Thus, the Pakistani response after the Balakot strike is a familiar denial with little or no reference (forget acknowledgement) to the JeM and its leader Masood Azhar. In case Pakistan follows the Mumbai 26/11 path, where even after a decade there has been no tangible progress on identifying and bringing to book the perpetrators, and disparages the Pulwama dossier handed over to  it — the prognosis is bleak.

The Balakot aftermath, which appears to be a tactical closure with the safe return of Wg Cdr Abhinandan, is being referred to as ‘de-escalation’, though there is no signal from Islamabad about the JeM trigger that led to the Indian ‘preemptive’ military action.

The possibility that Balakot will trigger a reprisal by the JeM and/or  its ideologues such as the LeT and other clones remains on the radar. This likelihood stems from the historical symbolism of Balakot and the events of 1831, when the Sikh army of Maharaja Ranjit Singh put the religious ideologue Ismail Dehlvi to the sword, thereby leading to a special resonance for the Islamic jihad movement. Hence my bleak assessment that Pulwama may not be the last terror attack that would be directed against India.

In retrospect whether India should have used a MiG with a pilot or a surface missile to counter the Pakistani fighter aircraft is a debate best left to the professionals. What is noteworthy is the fact that an older MiG of vintage quality got the better of the more advanced F-16 fighter.

But what does need to be acknowledged is that the Indian response to the challenge of jihadi terror, as illustrated by Pulwama, cannot be episodic  and driven in the main by the emotive jingoism noted in large sections of the audio-visual medium and its variants on social media.

The national security debate must return to Parliament and not become the handmaiden of the electoral compulsio

George Fernandes took to the job of the defence minister with gusto and a purpose that left a lasting impact. 

As India’s defence minister, George Fernandes was hosting his counterpart from a newly independent Central Asian Republic in 1999.

Suddenly, the visiting defence minister walked around the banquet table carrying a wrinkled plastic duty free bag for George Fernandes. He then pulled out a beautifully crafted horse whip. And in a rather dramatic fashion, he said something in Russian. It even made his translator’s cheeks go red.

I was the only journalist at the banquet. George Fernandes had a penchant for taking select journalists to events that would have a policy impact rather than be an immediate breaking news story. But even if I wanted, what he said in Russian was unprintable back then.

Everyone at the banquet was surprised when the translator said, still blushing: ‘we use this whip on the steppes, and this is for India to use in its neighbourhood’.

George Fernandes thanked him with a smirk. Because he had been doing just that in the recent past.

Also read: George Fernandes wouldn’t fix his broken gate, washed his clothes & was a teetotaller

Fernandes had ordered the Army to conduct a top-secret raid across the Line of Control that till today remains the only one that completely achieved its political-military objectives. It was never reported in the Indian media. There were reports in the Pakistani media, but those have now been taken down.

At that time, nobody called them surgical strikes, and they weren’t tom-tommed either, for they were a fairly common occurrence. That raid remains the most devastating in terms of lives taken, and the only one, which had the greatest impact on Pakistani activities. Rawalpindi ceased doing what it had been up to, and hasn’t repeated them since then.

With his crumpled look and trade union baggage, George Fernandes made for an unlikely choice as defence minister. But he took to the job with gusto and a purpose that left a lasting impact.

Also read: How a ‘viral’ image helped Mangalore’s George Fernandes win Bihar poll in absentia

At a breakfast interview, where I had gone to do a profile for The Indian Express, he said that his readings over the years had included various international defence journals. He added that this knowledge had never found an outlet in his political activities. It was soon evident when he began to take decisions that were sharp and without remorse.

Throughout his tenure as defence minister, George Fernandes’ main obsession was Siachen. At the Base Camp where he met me before undertaking yet another visit to a post, he remarked that this was his 16th tour. He had undertaken enough visits to qualify for a Siachen ribbon.

His empathy for the soldier was such that nothing else mattered. He even ordered a couple of Ministry of Defence bureaucrats to be sent to Siachen. This was because they had been delaying the purchase of snow scooters for troops deployed there. The officials wanted to know how was the procurement financially justified. He made them find the answer by sending them, without remorse. Just as he did by being the only defence minister to have sacked a service chief.

Also read: George Fernandes, firebrand socialist leader who rose above identity politics

The author is a Congress leader and a former Editor-in-Chief of Defence & Security Alert