New Delhi, October 29As tributes were paid to a soldier whose body was mutilated by “terrorists” in Machil sector, former Army chief General JJ Singh (retd) said it reflected the ‘barbarism’ of the Pakistan Army, and added that India should inform the international community of the act.The soldier, Sep Mandeep Singh, who was from Kurukshetra in Haryana, was beheaded by “terrorists” who fled back to Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir under cover fire from Pakistan Army on Friday.The Indian Army in an official statement said the soldier’s body was mutilated and added that it would retaliate with an “appropriate response”.Retired General Singh pointed out it was not the first time Pakistan had done something like this, and termed the act “barbaric and medieval”.”It is definitely an act of frustration. Having been hit very hard by India, this is an expression of frustration. They have done this in past as well, like during the Kargil war when they mutilated some of our soldier’s bodies,” the former Army chief said.”Mutilating a soldier and beheading him shows they have a medieval mentality… They must be investigated by the world,” he said.The former Army chief also recalled how during interrogation of Pakistani Prisoners of War after the 1971 war, he was told by a Pakistani soldier that Indians did not know how to “beat up someone”.”I do remember when we were interrogating some prisoners of war in 1971, I had gone to one of the Prisoners of War camps and one of them told me — ‘Sir aap Hindustaniyon ko to marna bhi nahi aata hai theek se (You Indians do not know how to even beat up someone properly),” General Singh recalled.”I did not understand as a concept of what was the meaning of that until when I was the ADGMO (Additional Director General of Military Operations) when we received the mutilated bodies of our soldiers,” he said.General Singh added that India should tell the world about Pakistan’s barbaric act.”India should tell the whole world what Pakistan is doing. Particularly with India, we honoured their fallen soldiers who they had abandoned. They should be grateful to us forever. How uncivilised they are…” he said.Retired Colonel Anil Kaul meanwhile said it was time for India to take “firm action”, and added that it was not terrorists but the Pakistan Army that was doing it.”Let’s stop calling it a terrorist act… Pakistan army is doing it,” Kaul said. “It is time we stop just speaking and act against them. We must respond. Pakistan has the habit of back stabbing.”This is not the first time Pakistan has mutilated the bodies of Indian soldiers.During the Kargil war in 1999, Captain Saurabh Kalia, Sepoys Arjunram Baswana, Mula Ram Bidiasar, Naresh Singh Sinsinwar, Bhanwar Lal Bagaria and Bhika Ram Mudh of 4 Jat Regiment were captured by Pakistani troops and brutally tortured.The soldiers had their eardrums pierced with hot iron rods, eyes punctured and genitals cut off. The autopsy of the bodies also revealed that they were burned with cigarettes butts. Their limbs were also chopped off, teeth broken and skull fractured during the torture. Even their nose and lips were sliced off.In another incident, on January 8, 2013, Pakistani soldiers entered Indian territory in Krishna Ghati sector of the border and killed two Indian soldiers — Lance Naik Hemraj and Lance Naik Sudhakar Singh. Indian officials said both the bodies were mutilated, and Hemraj’s body was decapitated.Just before retiring, former army chief General Bikram Singh, who headed the Indian Army when the incident happened, had said India gave a “befitting reply”.General Dalbir Singh, just after taking over as the Army chief, had then said if a similar incident occurred the Indian Army’s response “will be more than adequate in future”.Article 4 of the Third Geneva Convention protects captured military personnel, some guerrilla fighters, and certain civilians. It applies from the moment a prisoner is captured until he or she is released or repatriated. One of the main provisions of the convention makes it illegal to torture prisoners, and states that a prisoner can only be required to give his name, date of birth, rank and service number if applicable. — IANS

Lt Gen Surinder Singh, GOC-in-C, Western Command, lays a wreath at the Veer Smriti to mark the 69th Infantry Day in Chandimandir on Thursday. A Tribune photograph

Chandigarh, October 27

A solemn wreath-laying ceremony was held at the Veer Smriti war memorial to commemorate the 69th Infantry Day at Chandimandir military station today. Lt Gen Surinder Singh, General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Western Command, along with senior veterans, paid tributes to martyrs.Infantry Day is customarily observed on October 27 every year as it was on this day in 1947 that the first Indian soldier, from the 1st Battalion of the Sikh Regiment, landed at the Srinagar airport to defend the Kashmir Valley against the onslaught of Pakistani raiders.Maj Somnath Sharma of the Kumaon Regiment won the first Param Vir Chakra (posthumously) during these operations in the Battle of Badgam. Ever since, the Infantry has stood tall against all adversities and played a stellar role in all operations post-Independence, including counter-insurgency and internal-security duties. — TNS

Varun Gandhi. — File photo

New Delhi, October 20

BJP MP Varun Gandhi was at the centre of a controversy over allegations that he had leaked defence secrets to middleman Abhishek Verma and arms manufacturers after being “honey trapped”, a charge he stoutly denied.At a press conference here, Swaraj Abhiyan leaders Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav released a letter written by Edmonds Allen, a New York-based lawyer, to the PMO last month that Varun was honey trapped and compromised by Verma.He alleged that Verma “blackmailed” Varun, a member of the Defence Consultative Committee, into sharing sensitive information on crucial arms matters.Varun rejected these charges, saying he has not met Verma since 2004 and threatened to file a defamation suit against Bhushan and Yadav over the charges.”The entire information presented does not contain an iota of proof that either I had access or shared any communication regarding sensitive information to Verma,” Varun said.Allen, who was a partner of Verma, fell out with him in 2012. Verma is facing trial in the 2006 Naval War Room leak case.Bhushan alleged that despite having all the details, the BJP government did not blacklist Thales, the company that sold scam-tainted Scorpene submarines, as Dassault acquired it.India recently signed a deal with Dassault for 36 Rafale aircraft.”Any action against Thales may have jeopardised the Rafale deal. Moreover, contrary to previous announcements of getting 126 aircrafts, the government bought 36 aircrafts, paying double the price for individual units. It certainly appears to be the case that something is fishy,” Bhushan said.However, Bhushan and Yadav did not take Varun’s name during the press conference and instead asked journalists to refer to the letter. They claimed to have withheld photographic evidences pertaining to the matter.Allen wrote to the PM, Defence Minister, CBI and the NSA with all the details on August and September this year.Varun said he last met Verma when he was a post graduate student in London at the age of 22.”I am going to turn 37 now. I have never met him since I entered public life in 2004. The only reason why I even know of him is because his parents were members of parliament and was a respected family. I knew them as many other leaders knew them,” he said.Asked if he had come across any sensitive information during his tenure on the consultative committee on defence, he said, “Any MP who has been on that committee knows that not even 0.1 percentage of any confidential information is shared with the committee.” — PTI 

‘It can’t be business as usual’ : The BRICS Summit saw a growing recognition that there cannot be business as usual when it comes to dealing with terrorism. There is a growing recognition that terror has become a truly global challenge.” — Sushma Swaraj,External Affairs Minister

Simran Sodhi

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, October 18

India today again used the BRICS forum to hit out at Pakistan for state-sponsored terrorism.Addressing a BRICS forum today, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said there must be a “cost for those who support terrorists” and make a “false distinction between good and bad terrorists”.Her remarks were an obvious reference to Pakistan and her speech reflected a continuation of India’s policy of targeting Pakistan at the BRICS platform.But what should give India a cause to pause is the fact that among the BRICS grouping — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — two main countries Russia and China have refused to go along with India on this line. Sources in the government confirm that China was the main opposition to India’s attempts to include Pakistan-based terrorist groups in the Goa Declaration. While India was keen to have the names of Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) and Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) in the declaration, it was China that wanted a more general statement on terror. In the case of Russia, India expected some form of backing but to its surprise, Russia maintained silence on the Indian line against Pakistan.Even after the fiasco in Goa where both China and Russia made it clear that they were unwilling to go along with India on its anti-Pakistan tirade, the continuation of the policy by Swaraj today was a surprise.At a media forum in the capital, Swaraj said: “The BRICS Summit saw a growing recognition that there cannot be business as usual when it comes to dealing with terrorism. There is a growing recognition that terror has become a truly global challenge.”Prime Minister Narendra Modi, over the weekend, raised the issue of Pakistan terror repeatedly using the BRICS and later the BRICS-BIMSTEC Summits as international fora to highlight cross-border terrorism. That is a different story that there were few takers for India’s line.

Maya hits out at Parrikar over surgical strikes

Tribune News Service

Lucknow, October 18

BSP chief Mayawati today described Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar crediting the RSS teachings for the ‘surgical strikes’ as an insult to the Army.“The armymen had risked their lives to make a precise strike inside Pakistan-occupied Kashmir terrorist camps causing heavy casualties while the Defence Minister gave the entire credit to the teachings of the RSS. This is not just wrong but an insult to the Army,” Mayawati said.She said first the credit for the attack was given to Prime Minister Narendra Modi instead of the Army and not going a step further, it is being attributed to the teachings of the RSS.“The RSS is not an organisation acceptable to all as its agenda is to promote hatred and divisive forces. Calling itself a cultural organisation, it has always worked for a political agenda and now has many representatives in the BJP and its government,” she said.

Srinagar, October 13

Twenty students and two teachers from the Army Goodwill Schools of Bandipora and Sopore, who returned from a fortnight long tour to Pune, received a warm reception at Badami Bagh Cantonment on Tuesday.The students shared with enthusiasm their experiences of the tour, which had commenced on September 24. “The smiling, joyous faces of the young children confirmed that the capacity building tour organised by the Army in concert with the Aseem Foundation had achieved what it had set out to accomplish,” an Army spokesman said.The tour was held as a part of summer schooling camp-cum-student’s exchange programme to Pune.On Monday, the children had also met the Northern Command Army chief Lt Gen DS Hooda in Udhampur. “The focus of the tour was primarily to make up for the loss of studies caused due to the prevailing unrest in Kashmir and also to provide an exposure to teachers and students to a modern educational institution and the prevalent advanced learning facilities at the national level,” he said.Complimenting the children and teachers on the successful tour Chinar Corps Commander Lt Gen Satish Dua impressed upon them to optimise on the educative experience and share it with other friends and family members of theirs. — TN
Read more at http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/jammu-kashmir/education/army-welcomes-students-after-pune-tour/309112.html#deRlxWOiitWPPk5H.99

New Delhi, October 11

Ahead of their annual bilateral Summit, India has conveyed its opposition to Russia over its joint exercise with Pakistan, a nation which “sponsors and practises terrorism as a matter of State policy”, saying it will create further problems.Indian Ambassador to Moscow Pankaj Saran said this in an interview to Russian news agency Ria Novosti. His remarks come ahead of the bilateral meeting in Goa on Saturday between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who will be arriving in India on October 14. Apart from bilateral Summit, Putin will attend the Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa (BRICS) meet on October 16.India has been communicating its unhappiness to Russia over its joint military exercises with Pakistan. However, these concerns have been played down by the Russians who maintain that they hold similar military drills with other countries of the region as well.Saran also said: “There are some burning issues before the world today which the BRICS countries will certainly address and this includes the question of terrorism and the threat of terrorism faced by all countries in the BRICS group. So this will be a major item of discussion during the Summit apart from the regional conflicts and the global situation.”On India-Russia ties, the envoy said the two countries shared a special and privileged strategic partnership. — PTI

Indian Army soldiers take positions during their patrol near the Line of Control in Nowshera sector, 145 km from Jammu on Monday. PTI

Nowshera (LoC), October 10With spurt in ceasefire violations by Pakistan after India’s surgical strikes targeting terror camps, Indian Army on Monday said its “guard is up” along the Line of Control to reply to any eventuality, including BAT attacks.“The guard is up. We are on alert. We are ensuring that our LoC should be safe,” said a senior Army officer, manning the area of operation in Nowshera sector which falls opposite to Bhimber — one of the sites across the LoC targeted during the anti-terror operation on September 28 night.Army today took a team of mediapersons along the Line of Control to brief them on the situation, especially after the heavy firing by Pakistani troops post the cross-LoC surgical strike.”Defences at LoC are well prepared. Jawans are well motivated and morale is high. Our troops are prepared for 24X7 for any eventuality along the LoC,” the officer told reporters.There is a foolproof security mechanism in place and anti-infiltration measures have also been activated to foil infiltration of militants or any kind of BAT attack, the officer said.India had blamed Border Action Team (BAT), which is a mix of Pakistani special forces personnel and terrorists, for the brutal killing of its two soldiers in January 2013, one of whom was beheaded, and many other deadly attacks on troops along the LoC.”Our jawans are keeping a close eye and high degree of vigilance on the movement across the border to foil any design,” the officer said.There have been over 26 ceasefire violations from Pakistan on LoC in which four soldiers and five civilians suffered injuries and 11 shops were gutted.The heavy shelling and firing that followed the surgical strikes have resulted in displacement of thousands of border dwellers in Nowshera sector in Rajouri district.Despite the terrorising explosions from mortar bombs and the rattle of guns, people are reluctant to leave their houses and say they will help the Army.”We are not leaving our homes despite firing and shelling. We hope that it will also boost the morale of the Army,” S Singh, a Sarpanch (headman) of Gandrote, said.Most of the hamlets located along LoC in Nowshera are home to hundreds of ex-servicemen.”In case of any shelling and firing, we will put the villagers in safe houses to ensure their safety and security,” an army officer said.”We are prepared to give a befitting reply in the language that Pakistan understands,” said a jawan, deployed at the forward post on a hill top. — PTI