Ajay Banerjee

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 6

Even as the ruling BJP today accused the Congress-ruled UPA-II government (2009-2014) of “leaking” information of a “fake” Army coup to the media, records of Parliament show the Manmohan Singh-led government had then made it clear that “troop movement” was purely for training purposes.

The issue had cropped up in April 2012 when a newspaper ran a story alleging that the Army, then headed by General VK Singh, made an unauthorised movement of troops towards Delhi on the night intervening January 16 and 17, 2012.

Around the same time, the General, who is now a minister in the Modi government, had challenged his date of birth in the Supreme Court.

A reply in Parliament given by then Defence Minister AK Antony on April 25, 2012, said on January 16, 2012, one of the units of 50 Para Brigade carried out mobilisation to practice mounting from an alternative airfield other than Agra, during “fogged-out conditions/non-serviceability” of the Agra airfield due to operational reasons.

Agra is the home base of the Para Brigade. This column came to the location of one unit at Gurgaon on January 17, 2012. Mobilisation practice was under the 50 Para Brigade. The 33 Armoured Division based at Hisar was to carry out an exercise with troops in March-April 2012, Antony had said.

As a precursor to this exercise, a Mechanized Infantry battalion was mobilised by the formation commander towards Bahadurgarh (north-west of Delhi) to validate its loading, movement and occupation in poor visibility conditions.

The battalion reached the area of Bahadurgarh during morning hours on January 17, 2012, and proceeded to occupy the designated dispersal area as per standard operating procedure. Having validated their mobilisation drills, both Columns moved back subsequently.

There was no report received in the Ministry of Defence from intelligence agencies on January 16/17, 2012, as regards such troop movement, Antony had said.

The movement was aimed at refining the mobilisation drill and ensuring operational preparedness of the Army despite adverse weather conditions.

At a meeting of the parliamentary panel later, Defence Secretary Shashi Kant Sharma said the movement was a routine activity, which did not require any permission from the government. He is learnt to have told the panel that no standard operating procedures had been breached.