Former Army chief General VK Singh on Saturday came out hard and strong against allegations levelled against him. He rubbished reports that he had tried to stop the elevation of General Bikram Singh as his successor, asserting that had he wanted, the Army could have done so by changing its stance in the encounter case involving the incumbent chief. This, even as he hinted at having his own doubts over the encounter.
He termed the reports about his misuse of a secret Intelligence unit — Technical Support Division (TSD) of Military Intelligence — as “motivated” and the allegations that he wanted to topple the Jammu & Kashmir Government as “most absurd and laughable.” He said the TSD, which purportedly carried out unauthorised operations, was cleared by Defence Minister AK Antony and National Security Advisor (NSA) Shiv Shankar Menon. “A Joint Secretary of the Defence Ministry, who has since moved out from there, has leaked this report against me,” Singh claimed.
The former Army chief’s assertions came a day after media reports suggested that an internal Army enquiry headed by Director-General Military Operations (DGMO) Vinod Bhatia, urged the Defence Ministry to ask the CBI to look into allegations of misuse of TSD by VK Singh.
Heading a board of officers, Bhatia started the fact finding exercise in August, 2012 and handed over the findings to the Defence Ministry in March this year. The Ministry said it was yet to take a decision about handing over the issue to the CBI.
Rubbishing the allegations that the TSD gave funds to an NGO in Kashmir to file a PIl against Bikram, who was in line to become the chief after VK Singh’s retirement, Singh said had he wanted to stop the incumbent Army chief from assuming charge, he could have done so.
“There is a case against Bikram Singh in the Jammu and Kashmir High Court which has been going on. If we wanted to create problems which (the newspaper) is mentioning, we would have changed the stance of the Army which it took when the incident occurred. We have not done it. It involves the killing of a man, a 70-year-old, who is labeled as a foreign terrorist. There is no terrorist in J&K who is more than 30 to 40-years-old. And therefore, there was a hue and cry raised by humanitarian groups in J&K because there was a family, a poor Gujjar family, who identified this man to be theirs,” said the former chief.
He also said: “If we wanted to create problems, as has been averred, lot of things would have happened. And, let me assure you in recent times, as I believe, the Government of J&K has been putting pressure through the administration on the court and all other places, as the reports keep coming all over through the media to ensure that they can get exoneration in this particular case.”
On the charge that TSD paid Rs 1crore to Ghulam Hassan Mir, now Agriculture Minister in the Jammu and Kashmir Government, to destabilize the Omar Abdullah dispensation, he said: “I should put out an advertisement Government girana hai toh contact me, (Contact me if you want to topple the Government). It’s laughable.”
Singh said: “What the State Chief Minister is saying is motivated and is his personal agenda. If this unit (TSD) was allowed to function properly, the cross border terrorism you are seeing today, would not have happened.”
Emphatically stating that he would wholeheartedly welcome a White Paper on the entire controversy that was being linked to him, he said: “There are a lot of probes going on, what has happened to themIJ This is an orchestrated campaign against me by a few people.”
“This is very interesting. I have been accused of toppling the Indian Government, and now the Jammu and Kashmir Government. It is hogwash,” Singh said, adding that he was being targeted because he had shared the dais with BJP leader Narendra Modi at an ex-servicemen’s rally in Rewari, Haryana recently.
As regards reports that TSD was misused for unauthorised operations and indulged in financial wrongdoings, Singh claimed that the Army and Defence Ministry had found “nothing suspicious” against the unit in their probe. However, the TSD was made dysfunctional when Bikram assumed charge last year and all the officers of the unit were posted out. He also said the Government decided to close the issue by sending it to the NSA.
The TSD was formed after the 26/11 attacks on the basis of an operational directive given to the Army by the Defence Minister to perform a particular task to secure the borders and internal situation in the country, Singh said adding it was not his “private or rogue Army” as alleged by certain organizations.
On the issue of off-the-air-interceptors equipment which was allegedly used by the Army during his tenure to tap phones of Defence Ministry officials, Singh said it was under the Defence Intelligence Agency and not under the TSD. He also said such equipment can be used to tap conversation between mobile phones and not landline telephones.