CHANDIGARH: The Indian army has finally compelled Prime Minister Narasimha Rao to send Chandigarh senior superintendent of police Sumedh Singh Sainion leave for one month to facilitate an impartial army police joint enquiry in to a complaint by an army officer Vats that he was beaten up kept in police custody for one night even after he had disclosed his Lily.
The incident shook the army high command to take up the matter reportedly at the highest level with a view to send a message to the army rank and file posted to sensitive states like Punjab and Kashmir that they would be protected against police vandalism against army officers and sepoys.
The latest police strategy is to accuse Col Vats of being drunk at the incident when Saini was holding an enquiry into the killings of the wife and daughter of one of his body guards in Sector 7 of Chandigarh. According to the evidence proposed to be tendered before the joint enquiry team by the police Col Vats was in such a state that he could not tell his identity and that in the police station he slept for the night and that he could not be taken to the hospital for medical examination. The police learned of the colonel’s identity only in the morning and he was let off.
The police maneuvering have evidently puzzled the army as its officers are not trained in such tactics of planting evidence. Saini has evidently ensured that independent witnesses do not depose.
Meanwhile there are reports of fresh unrest among Sikh officers and men of the Indian army sparked off by letters from Punjab advising their uniformed relations not to return to Punjab “lest they should be killed in fake encounters by the Indian security forces.” Correspondence along these lines has gained momentum in the Sikh segment of the Indian army according to reliable reports here. There have been anxious investigations into the behavior of Sikh army personnel at the regimental center at Correspondence to all army officers and sepoys are thoroughly censored in India. For a few years now even the post delivery in most Punjab villages is also censored by the Indian intelligence agencies. Another source of worry to the Indian authorities is correspondence by those who had been discharged from the army in the wake of Sikh army men’s result following the operation “Bluestar.” These Sikh army men have been sending letters to their erstwhile colleagues that Indian authorities had given them no employment of relief despite assurances. To assuage the ruffled feelings, Punjab chief minister Beant Singh is being persuaded to visit the Sikh regimental center sometime this week, according to sources here.
Article extracted from this publication >> November 20, 1992
