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| Aberrations excepted, no communal element in Army: Gen Kapoor | | |
New Delhi, Feb 6: Army Chief General Deepak Kapoor today ruled out existence of a network of communal elements within his force, maintaining that the case of the alleged involvement of a serving lieutenant colonel in the Malegaon blast was an "aberration".
He also made it clear that the army would initiate internal action against Lt Col Srikant Purohit, an accused in the Malegaon blasts case being prosecuted by the Maharashtra Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS).
Kapoor said in an interview to a news agency that the army was reviewing its internal mechanisms and processes to further strengthen them so that such incidents do not not recur.
When asked if he still maintained that the case of Purohit was an aberration, he said, "Yes. That (it is an aberration) I still maintain.It is totally an aberration. And it has happened," Kapoor said. To a question whether they had found any network (of people like Purohit, accused in the Malegaon blast case being prosecuted by the Maharashtra ATS) within the army, he said "No, No. Implicitly I can say without doubt that we have done our checks, a whole series of checks."
Kapoor said the army's organisational culture and nationalistic secular ethos were deep-rooted and strong. "So are its internal mechanisms which are comprehensive and time-tested to prevail over any negative influence amongst its personnel."
He said their approach in dealing with possible negative influences and likely aberrant behaviour was multi-pronged that included a comprehensive screening and selection process at the time of initial induction.
Among other features, Kapoor said, were an institutional mechanism for building ethical and moral code amongst all personnel since the time of induction, feedback system to enable monitoring of adverse influences, and remedial and deterrent disciplinary action.
Kapoor said notwithstanding the outcome of the ongoing investigative and judicial process in the Malegaon case, the army took incidence of any and every aberrant behaviour of the personnel very seriously.” We continuously review our internal mechanisms and processes so as to further strengthen and keep them effective against newer challenges that emerge with changing times," he said.
Kapoor said the fact was also that after all people from services are from the same mainstream public.” So an aberration can occur when someone despite the training of the armed forces for a long period, the culture of the armed forces has not either fully percolated into his psyche or it has happened that he may have maintained his contacts outside where he has also been put in that frame of mind. But if it does happen, I think we must take action."
On changes in the institutional mechanism ton prevent such incidents in future, the army chief said changes have to happen in a non-turbulent fashion.” So we have looked at profiles of various people who have gone to certain areas. So, now now we are going to be ensuring that those people don't go back to the same area again and that they are posted in different areas." Kapoor said in some cases some people tend to become specialists like in the insurgency-hit northeast, where they may have had more than one tenure possibly because of the kind of record he had produced in his functioning there.
"If he has been a successful man and has been reported upon as such by his superiors all the while, well I see no harm at all. In fact, I feel it will be beneficial for the organisation to post such a person back to the northeast."
But, he said, if the work was not upto the standards and wherever there was a matter of doubt about one or two postings of a person, then it would not be done.” That is why I talk about posting profiles and post him somewhere else in a different charter," he said.
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