NEXT MOVE Action plan handed over by Parrikar, decision on implementation to be taken by PM and his Cabinet

From page 01 NEW DELHI: The Narendra Modi government is working on a multi-pronged plan incorporating military options in its post-Uri campaign against Pakistan. The diplomatic part of the plan has been launched at the United Nations with India calling Pakistan a terrorist state that poses a global threat.

PTI FILEThe arms and ammunition recovered from the slain terrorists who attacked the camp in Uri.

New Delhi plans to intensify the diplomatic effort with Islamabad’s traditional supporters in West Asia next by providing direct evidence of the involvement of a Pakistan-based terror group in the Uri attack.

South Block sources said a military action plan has been handed over to the government by defence minister Manohar Parrikar. The decision on its operationalisation is for Prime Minister Modi and his Cabinet to take, they said. “There is no point in retaliating now with Pakistan forces beefed up across the Line of Control and an alert on the international border with India,” a senior official said on condition of anonymity.

There are no Pakistan markings on either the AK-47 rifles or the two under-barrel grenade-launchers used in the attack but two code sheets in Urdu for wireless communication, two map sheets, two global positioning system (GPS) devices, two wireless set and stores recovered from the four terrorists killed at Uri reveal that the attackers were from a proscribed terrorist group from Punjab in Pakistan, sources said.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) team probing the September 18 attack that claimed the lives of 18 soldiers is expected to return to Delhi by the weekend. The damaged GPS devices will then be examined by experts to ascertain the route used by the four terrorists to cross the LoC and attack the army brigade at Uri. The wireless codes have already been deciphered by the security agencies, incriminating the terror group behind the attack.

Most of the Indian casualties were suffered as soon as the attack began and have been attributed to the fires in the tents and building housing the advance party of a Bihar Regiment unit. The terrorists were, however, prepared for a long operation as they were carrying dry fruit, medicines and nine packets of Pakistan-made juice powder and pouches.

The forces argue that the anomalies lower the status and pay parity of forces vis-a-vis their counterparts in the police and civilian administration. PTI file photo

New Delhi, September 16

Chiefs of Staff Committee (CoSC) Chairman Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha has issued directions to all service headquarters for implementing the 7th Pay Commission.

This means that soldiers will receive their new salary in their pay in September.

The development came after Raha, along with Navy chief Admiral Sunil Lanba, met with Defence Minister Parrikar earlier this week. Parrikar assured them that the central government would consider reviewing the “anomalies” they pointed out in the 7th Pay Commission, defence sources said.

In a surprising move, the three services had on September 9 issued letters to their formations saying they had asked the central government to hold “in abeyance” the implementation of the pay commission due to the “unresolved anomalies”.

Sources claimed Parrikar even had a gazette notification announcing the 7th Pay Commission amended to make sure the military retains its edge over the Central Armed Police Forces.

The Defence Ministry had recently notified the 7th Pay Commission.

Sources pointed out that a cabinet notification could not have been corrected before it was notified.

“The anomalies committees are meant to correct the shortcomings,” sources said.

The forces argue that the anomalies lower the status and pay parity of forces vis-a-vis their counterparts in the police and civilian administration. — PTI

Court agrees to independent inquiry into 1,528 ‘extra-judicial’ killings in Manipur

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court dealt a blow to the army’s immunity under a controversial law on Friday, saying it can’t use “excessive or retaliatory force” even in troubled places, and agreed to an investigation into hundreds of alleged illegal killings by security forces in Manipur.

The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (Afspa), which shields troops from prosecution and is in force in parts of the northeast and Kashmir, is blamed by human rights groups for illegal killings and arbitrary detentions by security forces. The military denies misusing the law.

Friday’s verdict came on petitions from rights groups demanding an investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) or any special team into 1,528 alleged cases of “extra-judicial killings” by the army in Manipur in a dozen years through to 2012.

“If members of our armed forces are deployed and employed to kill citizens of our country on the mere allegation or suspicion that they are ‘enemy’, not only the rule of law but our democracy would be in grave danger,” the top court said. “Society and the courts obviously cannot and do not accept such a death (extra-judicial killings) caused by the State since it is destructive of the rule of law and plainly unconstitutional,” a bench headed by Justice MB Lokur said.

The remarks are the strongest judicial rebuke yet of the army’s special shoot-to-kill powers, which trace their origins to a British-era ordinance used to suppress the Quit India Movement of 1942. It said the situation in Manipur was, at best, an internal disturbance and not a “war-like” threat to national security.

“The army’s internal oversight mechanism is quite robust. Soldiers have been punished with life imprisonment in many cases,” said a senior army officer, who did not wish to be named as the matter is sub-judice.

“But most of the allegations of human rights violations against the army have been found to be false.”

Referring to the “Ten Commandments of the Chief of Army Staff ”, the court said it didn’t matter whether the victim was a common person or a militant or a terrorist, nor did it matter whether the aggressor was a common person or the State.

The law was the same for both and equally applicable to both, it added.

The court agreed to have an independent inquiry into the cases of extra-judicial killings in the northeastern state. It said a decision on who should investigate will be taken after it receives more data on all the cases.

The court said the army was free to initiate a court of inquiry against the accused personnel. Under army rules, court martial proceedings have to be time-bound but in Manipur many cases have dragged for years.

The top court will now take the up the matter after four weeks. By then, advocate Menaka Guruswamy, who is assisting the court in the case, has to gather data on 62 cases earlier investigated by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and a court-appointed panel headed by former SC judge Justice Santosh Hedge.

The human rights watchdog had concluded that 31 of the 62 cases were fake, while the Justice Hedge committee said charges were trumped up in 15.

The Centre defended the killings, arguing they are “part of the sovereign function discharged by the Union of India through the army”. Attorney general Mukul Rohatgi had said security forces could not be blamed for collateral deaths that critics describe as extrajudicial murders in Manipur.

The petitioners – human rights organisations – say troops have not faced action as they operate under Afspa, which grants powers to them to arrest and shoot to kill without fear of prosecution.

CONTROVERSIAL LAW

WHAT IS AFSPA?

HT FILEPeople in Manipur protest against civilian deaths.

The Armed Forces Special Powers Act or Afspa was enacted in 1958 to bring under control what the government of India considered ‘disturbed’ areas It grants sweeping powers to the armed forces to arrest, conduct searches and seizures and also provides immunity from prosecution to members of the armed forces ENFORCED IN Parts of Manipur, Nagaland, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Jammu and Kashmir

THE PLEA

Human rights groups demand probe by CBI or a special investigation team into the alleged 1,528 cases of ‘extrajudicial killings’ in Manipur between 2000 and 2012 by the army

COURT REPLY

Says army can initiate a court of inquiry, but it must be time-bound Next hearing in 4 weeks. Decision on which agency will conduct probe pending.

Ex-servicemen burn the national flag of Pakistan in Ambala on Monday.TRIBUNE PHOTO

Ambala, June 27

Ex-servicemen under the banner of the Ex-servicemen Welfare Committee, Ambala, today held a demonstration and burnt the national flag of Pakistan to mark their protest against the attack on a CRPF convoy in which eight security personnel were killed in Pampore.Subedar Attar Singh Multani, president of the committee, said, “For how long do we keep mourning our soldiers? We request PM Narendra Modi to take the right decision and direct the Indian forces to attack all militant camps being run in Pakistan.” — TNS

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Kolkata, September 10

Minister of State for External Affairs VK Singh today described pellet firing as non-lethal and said it was a “sensible and well-thought decision” by the Home Ministry to use the weapon for controlling the protesting mobs in the Kashmir valley.“Pellet firing is non-lethal. The Home Minister’s (Rajnath Singh) decision was sensible and well-thought. People who come close to firing get injuries,” the minister said on the sidelines of a seminar organised by the Federation of Association of Small Industries of India.However, pellet firings have caused at least six deaths, including one today, when security forces fired at a protesting mob in a south Kashmir village.Hundreds of civilians, including minors, have lost their eyesight, partially or fully, after they were hit by pellets in the restive Valley. — IANS

We owe it to ourselves to take a hard look at the way we conducted ourselves, diplomatically and politically in this entire NSG saga. We have ended up looking rather indigenous, a little immature and a bit desperate to grab things. What about some quiet diplomacy

PM Narendra Modi with Chinese President XI Jinping in Tashkent:China was not the only nation that stalled India’s NSG bid. PTI

THANK heavens for Brexit. It helped take some attention off the fiasco in Seoul where India’s desperate bid to get into the elite Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) suffered a rejection. What makes it even more embarrassing for the government is that this is a twin failure. First, a rebuff at the diplomatic level, where despite the Foreign Secretary rushing off to Seoul failed to save the mission; and, second, a substantive failure at the political level where the Prime Minister received a royal Chinese snub. The double rebuff was totally avoidable.  India’s desire to get into the NSG is understandable but what puzzles an observer is the hype that was created around it. Any oldtimer would have told the Modi establishment; do the smart diplomatic homework before shouting about it from the rooftops. Politically, one wonders who advised Prime Minister Narendra Modi to invest his personal prestige to the extent of himself raising the issue with the Chinese President. A smart diplomat and an astute politician should know that the Prime Minister steps in only to seal a deal, not to make requests. In the case of the NSG fiasco, India messed up at both the fronts and pretty badly.It makes no sense to now make a case that it was “one country” that repeatedly raised procedural issues and thwarted India’s bid. China, to its credit, was very public in its opposition to India’s entry. In the runup to the NSG plenary meeting in Seoul on June 23-24, China repeatedly issued statements that made it amply clear that it was in no mood to let India into the elite nuclear club. India had its work cut out —  and that was to talk and convince China. From President Pranab Mukherjee travelling to China last month, to the Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar making a below-the-radar visit to Beijing just two weeks before the NSG session, India tried convincing China — and failed. The failure to convince China should have made the Foreign Ministry more cautious about going so public about its NSG bid. Again, this failure should have alerted the top bosses in the Foreign Ministry not to advise the Prime Minister to raise the stakes by taking up matter with the Chinese President when they met on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Tashkent. To any observer of foreign policy, it remains a puzzling scenario as to who advised Prime Minister Modi to then raise this issue with President Xi Jinping. Did someone really think that China would reverse its decision just because the request was being made by India at the highest level? Surely, no one could have been that naïve not even in this national security establishment. Maybe it was a political decision to hype the NSG berth and for Modi to raise the issue with Xi Jinping himself. After all the headlines would have been awfully good if the Prime Minister’s request had been accepted by the Chinese leader. It makes one wonder who is doing all this fantastical thinking in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in the Prime Minister’s Office. Is it the Foreign Office which misled the Prime Minister in thinking that India’s NSG berth would give him the same kind of historical legacy as the Indo-US civil nuclear deal in 2008 gave former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh? Or was it a political push to the Foreign Office to deliver, to make this desperate bid so that a political historical “event” could be created? Whoever might be at fault, one thing that has emerged crystal clear from the NSG fiasco is that many of the top officials — bureaucrats and politicians — in this government are yet to grasp the brutal realities of geopolitics. If legacies were this easy to create, well, our history books would be way thicker. But both past and current history teaches us one valuable lesson — which was conveniently forgotten this time around — do the groundwork, be sure of the outcomes, before going public with it. Also, somewhere let us not be parsimonious with facts. China was not alone. Turkey, New Zealand, Brazil and even Switzerland raised their objections in Seoul. Now Switzerland is another blot here. Modi travelled all the way to Switzerland, again made a public spectacle of the Prime Minister requesting the Swiss leadership for support for a berth in the NSG. The Swiss “agreed”, a diplomatic feather was added to the Prime Minister’s hat and everyone went ga ga over how India and the Prime Minister is winning the world over. Cut short to Seoul, a few weeks later, and the Swiss don’t seem to be supporting India. Again,  should we not be asking some tough questions of the people who were leading the charge. China, yes, is uncomfortable with India’s rise and wants to always hyphenate us with Pakistan and hence no support. We always knew that, but “pray” what happened to the Swiss? Someone should be doing a lot of explaining here. Even Turkey took a “principled” stand and said that India and Pakistan’s applications be considered simultaneously. The world knows about Pakistan’s proliferation record and no one needs a re-introduction to A Q Khan, but didn’t India realise that “right” arguments do not always convince the other? We owe it to ourselves to take a hard look at the way we conducted ourselves, diplomatically and politically in this entire NSG saga. We have ended up looking rather inelegant, a little immature and a bit desperate to grab things. And as India moves into the next round of negotiations for NSG or other “clubs”, a bit more grace and quiet diplomacy should be the preferred norm.  

simraj68@yahoo.com.

NEW DELHI: Finally, the ‘burst of fire’. The Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government on Wednesday cleared the much-awaited deal to buy 36 fighter jets from France’s Dassault Aviation.

The green signal for the deal worth ¤7.87 billion ($8.84 billion) was taken in a meeting presided by Modi.

The deal is expected to be signed on Friday, as French defence minister Jean-Yves Le Drian is arriving in Delhi on that day. Of the ¤7.87 billion, about 50 per cent will be covered under offset, which means either France will reinvest this amount in India or source equipment of this value from India.

French President Francois Hollande and Modi had intervened in the procurement of the nuclear-capable Rafale jets in 2015, ordering government-to-government talks after several years of commercial negotiations with Dassault had collapsed.

Besides other features that make the Rafale a strategic weapon in the hands of the IAF is the Beyond Visual Range Meteor air-to-air missile with a range of over 150 km. Its integration on the Rafale jets will mean the IAF can hit targets inside both Pakistan and across the northern and eastern borders while still staying within Indian territory.

Pakistan currently has only a BVR with 80 km range. During the Kargil war, India used a BVR of 50 km while Pakistan had none. With Meteor, the balance of power has again tilted in India’s favour. Scalp, a long-range air-to-ground cruise missile with a range of over 300 km also gives the IAF an edge over its adversaries.

Tough negotiations by the MoD-IAF team extracted many concessions from the French before arriving at a price that is almost ¤750 million less than what was quoted by France in January.

Vijay Mohan

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 6

Set up seven years ago to provide an ‘independent’ forum for redressal of grievances for ‘quick dispensation’ of justice to armed forces personnel, the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) is facing a massive shortage of judicial members. Of the eight Benches, only three are functional. Making matters worse, one of these could become non-functional this month.The AFT has eight Benches across the country, with each Bench comprising two or three courts. Each court is held by two members— a judicial member, who is a retired judge of a High Court, and an administrative member, who is a senior retired defence officer.The three functional  benches include the ones at Chandigarh and Lucknow. The judicial member of the Guwahati Bench is functioning as officiating chairman and travels between New Delhi and Guwahati. Consequently, either Bench is functional at one time. A ninth Bench at Jammu has been approved, but is yet to be notified. This has left armed forces personnel, including ex-servicemen and disabled soldiers, without any effective means of seeking relief.The AFT is required to have 17 judicial members, but is doing with just five. The sole judicial member at Chandigarh will retire this month. The number of administrative members is the same.When the AFT came into being, the number of pending cases was 9,449, according to Parliament’s Standing Committee on Defence. By 2015, the pendency had risen to a staggering 16,138. “The number of cases being filed has over the years also increased, particularly those related to Pay Commission anomalies. But then it is the disposal rate that matters, which has been dismal,” said a lawyer.While the AFT adjudicates on service matters pertaining to court martial verdicts, promotions, pay, allowances and pensions, it is the High Courts that decide on transfers and postings, summary punishments and verdicts of summary court martials. “This is a bizarre situation where smaller issues have been placed with a higher court and larger issues  before a court lower in the hierarchy,” another lawyer said.A vital issue regarding the functioning of the AFT pending before the Supreme Court is moving the AFT outside the administrative control of the Ministry of Defence and placing it under the Law Ministry. The Punjab and Haryana High Court last year accepted the argument that there was a conflict of interest in AFT members being selected by a panel in which the Defence Secretary was a member and the MoD paying these members salary and allowances.