Manpreet Singh Badal and his wife Veenu arrive at Raj Bhawan on Thursday.

Jupinderjit Singh

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 16

Newly appointed Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal today became the first in the new government to shun security cover and decline an official car, which he is entitled to as a Cabinet Minister and MLA.Other Congress ministers and MLAs have taken security.Manpreet reached Raj Bhawan for the swearing-in ceremony in his Toyota Fortuner without any police guard. In the SAD-BJP regime, ministers, some MLAs and halqa in-charges, who had not even won the elections, used to roam around with 10 or more gunmen.Even some Akali leaders in Delhi had up to 20 gunmen. To end the ‘VIP culture’ was one of the main issues in the Assembly elections. The Congress and AAP had promised in their manifestoes not to follow the ‘VIP culture’.Manpreet, who drafted the Congress manifesto, said he did not take police security and government vehicle during his tenure as the Finance Minister in the SAD-BJP government as well.As for AAP, its 20 MLAs will convene a meeting soon to decide whether or not take security. Dakha MLA HS Phoolka said that so far, none of the MLAs had taken security and official vehicle.“We are against the ‘VIP culture’ and show of power. Having said that, some MLAs may face difficulty as they don’t have a vehicle of their own. We will meet soon and take a call,” Phoolka told The Tribune.AAP chief whip Sukhpal Khaira said party MLAs would decide soon. “On a personal note, I feel government vehicle might be required. Moreover, an MLA can have gunmen, but it should not become a show of power,” he said.Some AAP MLAs said SHOs of their areas had attached a constable with them. They said the party used minimum police security in New Delhi, but the situation in Punjab was different. “Here, you have to travel a lot. In light of recent attacks and sacrilege incidents, security cover may become a necessity,” a legislator said.On government vehicles, AAP MLAs alleged the Transport Department offered them Maruti Gypsy, which was in poor condition. The government has Toyota Camry and Innova, besides Gypsy for MLAs. Congress MLAs have opted for the luxurious vehicles, leaving Gypsy for AAP and Akali MLAs.AAP MLAs have retuned Maruti Gypsy as their official vehicle. They may accept Innova.

Channi: No red beacon chandigarh: Keeping his word, newly appointed Technical Education Minister Charanjit Singh Channi ordered his staff to remove the red beacon atop his official car after the swearing-in ceremony at the Punjab Raj Bhawan here on Thursday. Channi said, “I have asked my driver not to keep any red beacon, because I will be travelling to the Secretariat as a common resident of the state. I have always told my voters that I am one among them.” Speaking to his supporters, Channi said, “I come from a middle-class family. I have seen the misuse of power associated with symbols such as red beacon and security guards. I will carry my office as simple and as open as I promised my voters during my campaigning.” Channi had avoided carrying a red beacon even when he was the CLP leader during the tenure of the SAD-BJP government in spite of being entitled to it. Sanjeev Singh Bariana

Army personnel near the encounter site in Tral. Tribune File photo

Azhar Qadri

Tribune News Service

Hayuna (Tral), March 10

The voice notes were sent and shared over phone messengers. The anonymous speakers called for mobilisation of demonstrators to rescue the militants.As the gunfight ensued for the next 16 hours before ending on Sunday afternoon, the site of the encounter was surrounded by angry crowds which came in waves to throw stones at the security personnel manning the outer rings of the cordon. The village of Haffo, where the gunfight took place this week, was surrounded by layers of security personnel and then by another layer of belligerent protesters.It is for the first time in south Kashmir’s Tral sub-district, where the village is located, that such a clash has taken place amid a gunfight. The police called it a “minor” incident. Locals, however, said it was previously unseen here.The new trend where civilians clash with security forces, engaged in battling militants, has swept the districts of south Kashmir and drawn warnings from the top echelons of security forces. It is almost a reversal of what used to happen during the first two decades of militancy in the region when civilians would flee to safety.At Haffo, the protesters made desperate attempts to rescue Aqib Ahmad Bhat, a young man from neighbouring Hayuna village, and Usama, a foreigner — the militant duo which was fighting off repeated assaults on a house which they had barricaded.On an early spring morning on Monday, a day after the gunfight ended at Haffo, Bhat’s body lay motionless on a makeshift stage under the shade of a leafless walnut trees. His face was partly bandaged to hide a bullet wound in his left eye. Next to the dead militant, a bearded speaker raised slogans in support of ‘gun solution’ and eulogising the militant cause. Finally, the speaker read out the names of dead militants to which women responded, “They are alive.” Their colourful scarves, which veiled the faces of many, sparkled in the barren ground at Hayuna, where Bhat’s body was kept for funeral.Some women wore a traditional black veil, including a mother, who moved between rows to find a spot from where she could make her two daughters, aged nine and twelve, have a look at Bhat’s face. For her, it was an act of reverence.The funerals of militants are drawing unprecedented participation in recent years, and, as the crowds of protesters swarm the battle zones, it is also reshaping the region’s political narratives.The last militant funeral in Tral was the largest in recent decade. It was of Burhan Wani, whose killing in a gunfight in July last year had sparked a wave of protests and a long phase of unrest.To reach Hayuna for Bhat’s funeral, men and women walked long distances. A middle-aged woman from Tral’s Amirabad village had walked 5 km. “I am married in Amirabad but I am from this village,” she said. “I have rarely seen him as he had gone to memorise the Koran for three years and then he went in Allah’s ‘path’,” she said.Inside the ground where Bhat’s body was placed before a crowd of mourners, the women raised slogans as men jostled to touch the militant’s body and held mobile phones to shoot pictures and videos. On the road outside the ground, some men gathered in groups, discussing facts, rumours and legends.Bashir Ahmad Mir, a local, recalled the protest that erupted around the site of the gunfight at Haffo village, located almost a kilometre from Hayuna. “Some people had even come from Kulgam to throw stones,” Mir said, referring to a district which is almost 60 km from Tral.Mir, in his fifties, was surprised at the way the new generation had clashed with security forces. “Earlier, everyone would run away, this time, everyone was rushing towards this place,” he said.One of the protesters who clashed with security forces outside Haffo had come from Shopian, nearly 40 km from Tral. “My two brothers have died, they were militants. So, I had to come,” he said as if it was an obligation for this father of two young girls. “Our blood is the same,” he said.

Civilians clashwith forces

• The new trend where civilians clash with security forces, engaged in battling militants, has swept the districts of south Kashmir and drawn warnings from the top echelons of security forces
• The funerals of militants are drawing unprecedented participationin recent years, and,as the crowds ofprotesters swarm the battle zone, it is also reshaping the region’s political narratives

26/11 carried out by group based in Pak is a classic trans-border terrorist event. Mahmud Ali Durrani, Ex-NSA

Simran Sodhi & Ajay Banerjee

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 6

Pakistan’s former National Security Adviser (NSA) Mahmud Ali Durrani today said the 26/11 Mumbai attacks were carried out by a terror group based in Pakistan.Speaking at an event here, Durrani, however, denied the Pakistan government or the Inter-Services Intelligence played any role, calling it a “classic” example of cross-border terrorism. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)His admission of Pakistan’s involvement comes as no surprise as he had said the same thing in 2009 too. He was sacked from the NSA’s post for confirming to the media that Ajmal Kasab, the lone terrorist captured after the Mumbai attacks, was indeed a Pakistani national. Asked for his response to Durrani’s statement, Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju said, “India’s position is well known and consistent… There is nothing new for us.”Speaking at the same event, Mohammad Hanif Atmar, Afghanistan’s NSA, condemned Pakistan’s policy of “using one terrorist against another”. He said there was no good or bad terrorist. Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar called for coordinated global action against terrorism. “Even though there is a broad consensus on what constitutes an act of terror, a formal agreement is missing,” he said.Since the Mumbai attacks in 2008, India and Pakistan have gone back and forth on the probe into the case. While Delhi has been demanding action against Lashkar chief Hafeez Saeed, Pakistan’s contention is that the proof provided against him was “inadequate”.Durrani’s statement, therefore, will be an added thread to the ongoing India-Pakistan narrative. After more than a year of chill in ties, India and Pakistan will meet for the Permanent Indus Commission talks in Lahore on March 20-21.

Arun Joshi

Tribune News Service

Jammu, February 21

Pakistan has opened a window for India to launch across-the-border operations to crush terrorism as it itself has gone in for anti-terror operations in Afghanistan.The border, when it comes to launching anti-terror operations, holds no sanctity. Pakistan has proved that in the last few days following the carnage at a Sufi shrine in Sindh.America was the first to do it after 9/11 when it bombarded Afghanistan and landed its forces there to stamp out the Al-Qaida and the Taliban.Now Pakistan has done it. By that standard of anti-terror operations, Pakistan cannot deny India its right to strike at terrorist camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir for terrorists have been using Pakistani soil to attack India. Besides, Pakistani terrorists have been hyper active against India in Afghanistan as well.Pakistan did not hesitate even for a moment to conclude that the terrorists who killed worshippers at the Lal Shabaz Qalandhar shrine in Sindh were from Afghanistan. It went on to ask for 76 terrorists from the Afghanistan government. The Afghan envoy was not summoned to the foreign office but to the General Headquarters of the Pakistan army.The Pakistan army claimed to have killed over 100 terrorists in Afghanistan. It has also warned Kabul that it would repeat the operations as and when Islamabad would suspect that Afghanistan-based terrorists were targeting Pakistani people or establishment.The message was heard loud and clear in Pakistani Senate when on Monday, Pakistan’s Finance Minister Ishaq Dar told the House: “The Prime Minister had authorised the army to take out terrorists wherever they might be.”There, however, was a dichotomy in his statement when he said: “It had been established beyond doubt that foreign soil had been used to orchestrate the two latest attacks — in Lahore and in Hayatabad.” He recalled Pakistan’s commitment that its soil would not be allowed to be used for terrorism in any country and noted that the time had come to ensure that no other country’s soil was used against Pakistan.Pakistan’s soil has excessively been used by terrorists to target Afghanistan and India. It is an undeniable fact that Pakistan’s soil has given birth to several terrorists, who have been trained to strike the western countries too.Terror groups such as Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad and some sections of the Taliban having links with the Islamic State have been operating under the direct patronage of the Pakistan army.So, for a Pakistani minister to say that “Pakistan’s soil would not be allowed to be used for terrorism in any country” runs into the face of the realities that have traced terror camps in Pakistan, wherefrom terrorists are prepared for “jihad” in J&Kand other parts of India and Afghanistan.India for its own security has the right to strike at terrorist camps wherever they exist, here or across. The sovereignty definition cannot be a one-sided definition. Pakistan itself has shown the door officially. Now, it is time for India to learn the right lessons, this time from the neighbouring country, also troubled by terrorism.It is a universally acknowledged fact that Pakistan is an epicentre of terrorism. The best course for Islamabad, as military experts would suggest, would be to first decimate its home-grown terrorists. The terms “good terrorists” and “bad terrorists” hold no ground. By now this fact should have dawned on Pakistan.

Aspirants await their turn for a medical test during a recruitment drive in Ludhiana on Tuesday. Tribune photo: Himanshu Mahajan

Shivani Bhakoo & Nikhil Bhardwaj

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, February 21

On the second day of the recruitment rally for 14 vacancies in Territorial Army here today, syringes and other objectionable material, including empty bottles of cough syrup, was found from the bags of several candidates.Army officials said the material was obtained not only from the candidates of Punjab, but also from Haryana and Delhi. Col NK Sharma, under whose guidance the recruitment process is being held, said the candidates’ bags were checked on both days randomly.“We found used and unused syringes and empty bottles from their bags. This shows that to enhance the performance the candidates must have consumed drugs. We did not let them go for any physical or other test and they were immediately sent back,” said Col Sharma.On being asked the number of such candidates, Col Sharma said the bags were randomly checked by Army personnel at different points and they did not maintain any record.“We are also conducting dope test of candidates, who have scored well in physical tests. Each testing kit costs around Rs 250 and is used on one person only. It is not viable to conduct dope test on each and every candidate. But those selected and have scored well are being minutely watched,” said Col Sharma.Most of the participating candidates are from rural background from states of Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. The rally will conclude on February 28.At least 6,000 candidates are expected to take part for 14 vacancies of Territorial Army.

Tribune file photo for representation.

New Delhi, February 21Dhobi, safai karamchari, mali and mochi at CRPF will soon get English titles, while cook will become chef and barber will be called hairstylist as part of a ‘nomenclature facelift’ suggested by the government.Fitter will become automotive mechanic, mali will be gardener or horticulturist and safai karamchari — house keeper, while those working in kitchen including masalchi, kahar and water carrier will be known as assistant chefs.Other proposed changes for titles of trademen at the paramilitary force include dhobi to laundryman, chowkidar to security assistant and mochi to shoe maker.These changes were suggested to the Central Reserve Police Force by Union Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy under the skill development programme.“Hoping to enhance the respect of the work force in CRPF the minister wants to do away with tags such as chowkidar, mali, mochi, safai karamchari,” a senior official told PTI.“Though there is no substantive change in the rank and nature of job, yet their trade title is proposed to be changed. Further there is no financial implication in this case,” the official said.The changes have also been shared with other paramilitary forces like CISF, ITBP, BSF, SSB and Assam Rifles.Sharing his thoughts with CRPF jawans while distributing certificates of Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) earlier, Rudy had noticed that the nomenclature associated with the skill sets and work force are archaic and needed a facelift, the official said.The minister had expressed the need to recognise and prepare a new and more aspirational vocationally skilled work force with a view to ensuring their employability, and making them more respectable and indicative of the trade. — PTI

NEW DELHI: Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, according to media reports, has sought a report over the short supply of medals that has forced soldiers to buy duplicate ones from the market.

The medals are for various achievements including bravery, distinguished service among others. According to sources, while those medals awarded at investiture ceremonies were available, lakhs of others awarded over the years are not.

This includes those given for completing a certain number of years in service, serving in difficult areas or taking part in various operations. The situation has been such that only a handful of medals have been officially issued over the last 7-8 years while over 10 lakh medals are pending. Media quoting a defence source said, “The Defence Minister has sought a report on the situation and why it (the medals) has not been issued for so many years. The Medals Department of MoD is responsible for issue of medals to the Armed Forces.”

Defence Minister Parrikar should also ask for figures of how many medals were dispatched by post to soldiers say in the last 10 years long ‘after’ after they had retired from service. The numbers would likely shock him.

Of course, the Medal Section is quite capable of obfuscating the real figures. According to an unnamed source in the Ministry of Defence, non-availability was due to some “financial constraints”. This is nothing but a weak bureaucratic cover up especially considering the crores of rupees from the defence budget that gets surrendered each financial year.

Soldiers perforce have to buy duplicates of their hard-earned medals. One favourite place for purchasing duplicate medals is Gopinath Bazar in Delhi Cantonment. The difference between the original and the duplicate is that the name of the soldier and his service number is engraved on the rim of the original medal.

Why does a soldier buy a duplicate medal? Not understood by many, it is what medals he wears on his chest that adds to his ‘izzat’. He does not favour his chest bare without the medals due to him and – consequently less medals compared to his contemporaries. And why should he not receive his medals promptly rather tham several years later when he has earned them through sweat and blood. MoD’s Medal Section will of course excuse the inexcusable to the Defence Minister, blaming shortage of funds and the like.

The problem of giving the medals to soldiers’ years after these were awarded is endemic and the actual issue is institutionalized corruption.

Fancy what a MoD official had revealed some years ago. When the Government of India decided to award the 50-year Independence Medal to all security forces (Armed Forces, Para Military Forces, Central Armed Police Forces and Police personnel included), the overall contract worked out to some Rs 100 crores. This was with the cost of every individual medal worked out at Rs 100, even though the duplicate was available in Gopinath Bazar for less than half that price.

Awarding the contract itself took considerable time because vendors were being hunted who could pass on Rs 20 crores under the table before the agreement was inked. Thus not only is awarding the contract delayed, timely delivery of medals becomes a casualty with no pressure on the vendor with the money jingling in the pockets.

It is also very likely that the same vendor or vendors, who produce the actual medals, also makes the duplicates. This can be easily verified from the shops selling duplicate medals.

Obviously, delayed delivery of actual medals boosts the sales of duplicate medals. After all, the vendor has to somewhat make up, if not completely, the bribe paid while securing the contract for delivering the actual medals.

What the defence minister may wish to examine is that why even today, is the cost of the duplicate medal less than the real one and how much should it actually cost to engrave the service number and the name of the awardees on the rim of the medal? Incidentally, the engraving of the name and service number is generally quite crude.

In this age of advanced metallurgy, it certainly should not make such a vast difference between the cost of the real medal and the duplicate one. Inordinately delayed issue of medals has been a perpetual problem perhaps from the time since Independence because of deep rooted institutionalized corruption, and this needs to be probed and eradicated.

It remains to be seen what explanations / excuses the Medal Section will put forward and what decision the Defence Minister will take. It is quite possible that there may be no further news on the issue in the media.

(Lt General P.C.Katoch (retired) is a veteran officer of the Special Forces)

Wang Qi (77)

Bhopal, February 10

Five decades since he crossed over to India post the 1962 war and raised a family in Madhya Pradesh’s Balaghat district, a Chinese soldier is all set to fly back to his native country.Wang Qi, now 77, was caught when he entered the Indian territory shortly after the Sino-India War of 1962. He was later released from jail.”Wang with his wife Sushila, and their son Vishnu and two other family members will be flying to China,” Balaghat Collector Bharat Yadav said.He said Wang and his four family members got visa today and they might fly to China tomorrow, adding this became possible due to the help they received from the Ministry of Home and External Affairs. Official sources in Beijing said Wang and his family members were expected to arrive there tomorrow.After their arrival, they would travel to his native place in Shaanxi Province to meet Wang’s relatives, they said. Yesterday, the Ministry of External Affairs had said that it was following up the case and helping Wang and his family members to visit China to meet his extended family. The development has come within a week after a delegation from the Chinese Embassy met Wang who had been wanting to visit his country. Wang, who lives with his wife and three children in Tirodi area of Balaghat, has not been able to visit China for want to permission from Indian government, according to the family. — PTI