Senior Minister Leaked Troop Movement Story To Newspaper, Says Sunday Guardian Report
New Delhi, Apr 5: The Indian weekly newspaper Sunday Guardian has reported quoting "sources" that a senior minister of the UPA government was the brain behind Wednesday's front page story in the Indian Express which
PTI
April 06, 2012 13:30 IST
New Delhi, Apr 5: The Indian weekly newspaper Sunday Guardian has reported quoting "sources" that a senior minister of the UPA government was the brain behind Wednesday's front page story in the Indian Express which detailed the January 16 troop movements.
The report says: "The sources claim that the minister is connected - through his close relative - with the defence procurement lobbies gunning for Chief of Army Staff General V K Singh,and that the decision to "trick the newspaper into running a baseless report was to drain away support for General Singh within the political class", who could be expected to unite against any effort at creating a Pakistan-style situation in India.
"However,the minister in question appears to have miscalculated the response of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Defence Minister to the report."
"The minister assumed that both would decline comment on the report, in view of their strained relations with the Army chief, but instead both came out foursquare against the newspaper.
"This surprised both the minister as well as journalists who relied on him for the initial information," a source claimed.
"Others say that a close relative of the minister in question has been "regularly meeting with arms merchants and their lobbyists, including on his many visits abroad".
They say that the Intelligence Bureau seems clueless about such activities,as "its net does not cover the influential people in question".
According to The Sunday Guardian report, those connected with national security say that "the net of arms merchants is very wide, with Dubai,London and Bangkok being the three locations where they usually wine,dine and otherwise entertain VVIPs from India".
The report says: "In order to ensure protection for their operations,a lot of which involves dubious money transfers, such agencies and individuals "usually function as auxiliaries of foreign intelligence agencies, and are told to ferret out sensitive and secret information from their contacts".
"These sources claim that "non-declared units of selected NATO member country intelligence agencies (especially one with a huge presence in the defense procurement market in India ) regularly liase with lobbyists and employees of arms manufacturers,and use them for operations such as honeytrapping".In such a context,"their link with relatives of ministers is a worry."
"According to these sources,the minister in question "is well-known to senior journalistic levels of the publication" that ran the coup report.
"A military source was "surprised that the newspaper in question ran such a story,in view of the high level of competence of its senior staff", but added that " a senior minister being the source of the initial information would explain their belief in the truth of the report".
"Other military sources warned that the "objective behind the leak was not merely to discredit the Chief but to paralyse the army in its training function".
"Already, procurements have slowed to dangerous levels because of repeated - and often accurate - claims of graft. Should the military's freedom to undertake routine training exercises of the sort described in the report get curtailed" because of imaginary fears of a coup, "the military would very soon lose its fighting edge".
The report further says; "Military sources claim that even some civilian officials "are linked to arms lobbyists and through them to foreign intelligence agencies",and that these "want to take away even the little freedom of action that is left with the military" since the Nehru-era policy of removing of discretion from the uniformed services to the civilian side.
"While no one accuses the senior minister of wanting to degrade the capabilities of the army, these sources say that he has perhaps unwittingly "played into the hands of certain arms lobbyists who are salivating not only at the prospect of garnering huge army orders during the balance of the UPA's term in office" but "who seek to weaken the training function of the army and thereby render the force less effective against the sort of challenges that it is facing in Kashmir and other threatres."
"Army sources say that "the strong rebuttal by the PM and the RM (Defence Minister) has cheered those in the service who were unhappy at the way the Chief is being treated".
The report says: "The sources claim that the minister is connected - through his close relative - with the defence procurement lobbies gunning for Chief of Army Staff General V K Singh,and that the decision to "trick the newspaper into running a baseless report was to drain away support for General Singh within the political class", who could be expected to unite against any effort at creating a Pakistan-style situation in India.
"However,the minister in question appears to have miscalculated the response of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Defence Minister to the report."
"The minister assumed that both would decline comment on the report, in view of their strained relations with the Army chief, but instead both came out foursquare against the newspaper.
"This surprised both the minister as well as journalists who relied on him for the initial information," a source claimed.
"Others say that a close relative of the minister in question has been "regularly meeting with arms merchants and their lobbyists, including on his many visits abroad".
They say that the Intelligence Bureau seems clueless about such activities,as "its net does not cover the influential people in question".
According to The Sunday Guardian report, those connected with national security say that "the net of arms merchants is very wide, with Dubai,London and Bangkok being the three locations where they usually wine,dine and otherwise entertain VVIPs from India".
The report says: "In order to ensure protection for their operations,a lot of which involves dubious money transfers, such agencies and individuals "usually function as auxiliaries of foreign intelligence agencies, and are told to ferret out sensitive and secret information from their contacts".
"These sources claim that "non-declared units of selected NATO member country intelligence agencies (especially one with a huge presence in the defense procurement market in India ) regularly liase with lobbyists and employees of arms manufacturers,and use them for operations such as honeytrapping".In such a context,"their link with relatives of ministers is a worry."
"According to these sources,the minister in question "is well-known to senior journalistic levels of the publication" that ran the coup report.
"A military source was "surprised that the newspaper in question ran such a story,in view of the high level of competence of its senior staff", but added that " a senior minister being the source of the initial information would explain their belief in the truth of the report".
"Other military sources warned that the "objective behind the leak was not merely to discredit the Chief but to paralyse the army in its training function".
"Already, procurements have slowed to dangerous levels because of repeated - and often accurate - claims of graft. Should the military's freedom to undertake routine training exercises of the sort described in the report get curtailed" because of imaginary fears of a coup, "the military would very soon lose its fighting edge".
The report further says; "Military sources claim that even some civilian officials "are linked to arms lobbyists and through them to foreign intelligence agencies",and that these "want to take away even the little freedom of action that is left with the military" since the Nehru-era policy of removing of discretion from the uniformed services to the civilian side.
"While no one accuses the senior minister of wanting to degrade the capabilities of the army, these sources say that he has perhaps unwittingly "played into the hands of certain arms lobbyists who are salivating not only at the prospect of garnering huge army orders during the balance of the UPA's term in office" but "who seek to weaken the training function of the army and thereby render the force less effective against the sort of challenges that it is facing in Kashmir and other threatres."
"Army sources say that "the strong rebuttal by the PM and the RM (Defence Minister) has cheered those in the service who were unhappy at the way the Chief is being treated".