Army major seeks fair trial in encounter
scam
Chandigarh:
The main accused in the fake killings scandal, which
rocked the Indian army last week, has demanded an independent
inquiry into the case, alleging he was being victimized.
Defence Minister George Fernandes had on Friday accepted
that Indian troops had staged fake battles on the Siachen
Glacier and made false claims about killing Pakistani soldiers
in a bid to win gallantry medals. The admission came after
a leading daily reported that Indian soldiers had shot "hazy
videos" of faked battles on the Siachen glacier last year,
posing as dead enemy troops and even destroying one of their
own bunkers. Indian and Pakistani troops have been deployed
since 1984 on the snowy wastes of the Siachen Glacier, north
of the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir. It is one of
the world's most inhospitable terrains, where more soldiers
die of cold and altitude sickness than through enemy action.
Major Surinder Singh, a senior army man, had been found
guilty of "having" faked the killings. Singh, who is facing
disciplinary action, on Tuesday (May 11) appealed to a court
seeking the inquiry be conducted outside the army's Northern
Command. Though admitting to being a part of the fake operation,
Singh has said that he is being made a scapegoat to shield
other top-level officials.
"The investigation which has been carried out so far is
totally unfair. It was done to safeguard certain individuals.
We are demanding that fresh investigations be done and they
should be held outside the northern command. Let the guilty
be punished then let it be my client only," R.S Randhawa,
counsel for Singh, told reporters in Chandigarh. Media reports
had said that a third of the 50 killings of Pakistan soldiers
attributed to Indian troops on the Siachen glacier last
year may turn out to be false. To make their claim realistic,
Indian troops built an air defence bunker on their side
of the glacier and destroyed it with rockets and mortars,
claiming it was a Pakistani bunker, the newspaper said.
India and Pakistan have been observing a cease-fire on Siachen
since November.
Hizbul commander shot dead (Go
To Top)
Srinagar:
Security forces have shot dead the Hizbul Mujahideen's
Deputy Chief Commander Shakeel Ansari in an encounter in
downtown Srinagar. Police said that Ansari was killed in
a gun battle on Monday night in the Soura locality of the
city. He was a resident of Marmat in Doda district in Jammu
division.
Two killed in Gujarat cyclone (Go
To Top)
Bharuch
(Gujarat): At lest two persons, a mother- child duo,
were killed here as a cyclone hit the low-lying villages
in the coastal areas on Monday. Villagers said the women
and child were killed when a tree fell on them. . Indian
Meteorological Department had warned the villages in the
coastal areas that the storm was moving north towards the
southern coast of the state. The state government had said
it was ready to begin evacuating people if necessary.
