The Jammu & Kashmir Assembly on Monday passed a unanimous resolution urging the Central Government to hold a transparent and time-bound inquiry into the former Army chief Gen VK Singh’s allegations against J&K mainstream politicians and Ministers of being recipients of Army’s secret funding. The resolution was adopted after a marathon debate of nearly four hours on the issue.
“The House unanimously resolves that the allegation made by retired Gen VK Singh should be enquired in a time-bound and transparent manner by the Government of India,” the resolution tabled by Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said.
The J&K legislature has been hauling Gen (retd) VK Singh over the coals since a newspaper report last month published a leaked Defence report alleging that Gen Singh floated a secret Technical Support Division (TSD), during his tenure, which funded crores of rupees to a J&K Minister and an NGO to topple Omar Abdullah-led Government and scuttle elevation of Gen Bikram Singh to the Army Chief’s post. In his subsequent interviews, Gen Singh justified funding a Minister for “winning hearts of Kashmiri people” and also claimed that the Army has been secretly funding J&K Ministers since the Independence.
While all mainstream parties resented Gen Singh’s comments, the ruling party blamed him for 2010 unrest in Kashmir, which shook the stability of the Omar Abdullah Government.
Speaker Mubarak Gul said that he would take a call on the privilege motion in the next few days. Finance Minister Rahim Rather had warned that Gen Singh would be summoned to the J&K Assembly for “impeachment”.
However, analysts say that the unanimous resolution against Gen Singh would pave way for an escape route to the former Army chief because most of the members said that his comments were his personal and did not reflect the policy of Indian Army.
Concluding the discussion, the Chief Minister said he had written a letter to the Prime Minister on September 25, urging for the need of instituting a probe into the allegations made by Gen Singh “jeopardising the mainstream polity in Jammu & Kashmir and creating suspicion in the minds of people on the role of Army”.
Omar said that by asking questions to Retired Army Chief about his role should not be dubbed as belittling the stupendous role of Army and the high credibility of Indian Armed Forces, which have given huge sacrifices for safeguarding the borders and ensuring safety and security of the people.
Omar said that the disclosures made by the former General have put the democratic institutions in the State to most dangerous threat which these have not come across so far.
The Chief Minister said that he was informed by an Army officer that four machines — two each in Jammu & Srinagar — were installed by TSD, which tapped telephonic conversations of even the Chief Minister.