More farce, some truth: Central and J&K govt fail to convince us

As much Indian Express might be happy with its sensational piece which gripped the nation yesterday, it must not have been too proud of its earlier story on the similar issue. After all, the piece in which the editor in chief is involved should not look as a farce. But the story published on April 5, 2012, titled “The January night Raisina hill was spooked” does not have any precedence.

The story was based on smell of “curious” actions by army in the national capital on January 16-17. What was a routine army exercise foiled by the dense fog in the capital was given colours of a foiled coup.

The detailed analysis of the report by the strategic and defence experts calls these allegations a bit of truth with a lot of salt. As detailed out in yesterday’s report on this website, the government was sitting in the said sensitive report from six months without knowing about it. Although it endorsed it the moment it was leaked in the newspaper. The actions of the government and the shaky grounds of the cnclusions jumped to by the PMO only showed that the report was being used as a smear campaign against Singh.

The recent to be a party in this smear campaign in Jammu and Kashmir government. As reported by Indian Express today, “sources close to chief minister” told that the army’s technical service division (TSD) had tapped phones of the CM and several ministers. It also reports that snooping was confirmed by a team of police deployed to check that. The confirmation of it was received by the CM by a “senior” army officer too.

The question that instantly arises is why the matter was not brought to light? Why was it not probed till now? And why was not any action taken?

In the same report, Indian Express says that in October 2011, NC leader and CM Omar Abdullah’s uncle Mustafa Kamal had accused the army of carrying out attacks in order to “stall revokation of AFSPA”. He later backtracked from his false allegation. What is ridiculous that the same Mustafa Kamal has been quoted demanding resignation of j&K agriculture minister Ghulam Hassan Mir. He says, “We had apprehensions about Mir, today The Indian Express report has confirmed it. He (Mir) should step down as Agriculture Minister and probe should be announced against him.” Moreover, what is equally laughable is the fact that the apprehensions among the ruling party were cleared only after a newspaper leaked an internal army probe report, whose credibility is another matter to check.

There is no denying that the report does contain some facts like formation of TSD and buying of surveillance material. But the timing of the report and the way this sensitive matter is being handled by the central as well as the state government of J&K does little to convince us.