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| Army gives in to Police | | | Early Times Reporter
Jammu, Sept 9: Feeling cornered from all sides by mounting pressure from the state government and instructions from the organization top brass, finally the Army has reluctantly agreed to cooperate with the Jammu and Kashmir Police probing the controversy over the pilferage of food and clothes meant for troops on the Siachen glacier.
According to the sources in the state's Home department, the Army has put a condition that it will cooperate only after the two courts of inquiry already looking into the matter finalise their process. However, the Army said that the Jammu and Kashmir Police can summon its officers only when they are not satisfied with findings of the court of inquiry.
The Army officers also informed the state government that they were not happy with the attitude of SSP Leh Alok Kumar who was showing an aggressive approach. Telephone calls were made to senior government officials even from the Udhampur-based Northern Command, responsible for the whole of Jammu and Kashmir, complaining against Kumar, a 1997 batch IPS officer from the state cadre.
However, after the army found no takers for its complaints, it gave an assurance to police that it would cooperate in the probe once the two courts of inquiry were completed, sources in Jammu and Kashmir's home department said.
Copies of the findings of the two inquiries will be handed over to police and after this, if required, the concerned army officials will be produced before police at Leh for questioning, the sources said.
A spokesman at army headquarters said one inquiry was at an advanced stage and the other one will be completed once the chief judicial magistrate gave the army permission to examine five civilian witnesses.
The Leh-based army corps, which was in the news recently for the alleged sexual exploitation of a woman officer by a major general, has ordered two separate courts of inquiry to go into the pilferage of special rations meant for troops in Siachen as well as high-altitude jackets and parachutes in Nubra Valley.
The army and police were initially at loggerheads after police summoned three senior officers of the army's strategic 14 Corps for questioning in connection with the pilferage and sale of high-altitude clothing and rations.
Evidence gathered by police so far has pointed to the possible involvement of a brigadier in the scam. Police have registered 11 FIRs since July after seizing food packets and other equipment meant for Siachen that were being sold in local markets, sources said.
Police have also arrested 31 people, including shopkeepers, in various areas in northern Kashmir. A few of them have made confessional statements before magistrates in which they named senior army officers who allegedly supplied the materials to them, sources said.
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