New Delhi: Eight retired former Army Chiefs today in a joint statement said, no funds were even given by the Army to any politicians, any political party or any NGO during their tenures.
The joint statement said: “No funds were ever provided by the Army, to any politicians, political party or any NGO in our tenures and no would we have allowed that."
The statement was issued jointly by former Generals OP Malhotra, SF Rodrigues, S Roychowdhury, VP Malik, S Padamanabhan, NC Vij, JJ Singh and Deepak Kapoor.
Meanwhile, former Army Chief Gen V K Singh today termed as "false and motivated" allegations that intelligence funds were used by a unit set up by him to topple the Jammu and Kashmir government.
"At the outset I would like to state that all the allegations are false and motivated," he said in a statement.
He said the unit was not set up by him and was established by the Army "at the behest of the National Security Advisor after the dastardly attack on Mumbai by Pakistani terrorists who were subsequently labeled by the media as 'non-state actors'".
"TSD was created as a capability mentioned in the operational directive of the Defence Minister and set up following the due process of procedures existing in the Army as part of intelligence units under the DGMI," Gen Singh said.
He said the decision to disband the unit shortly after his retirement "was a decision taken by the powers that be for reasons best known to them".
According to the former army chief, the leakage of information about the top secret unit was "seditious, regardless of whether information is true or false. Even knowledge of the existence of TSD can help the nation's enemies. Being treasonous, the consequences for the 'leakers' and their collaborators could be very serious".
He questioned the government's silence on the issue saying it had done nothing whatsoever to either trace the source of the leaks or make any categorical statement putting an end to this malicious and dangerous campaign.
