NEW DELHI: The government yesterday denied reports of an army movement towards the capital in January this year, terming the report as baseless and alarmist.
"The Defence Ministry has clarified the position. These are alarmist reports which should not be taken on its face value," Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said yesterday while interacting with the media.
The Indian Express in its report has accused the government of trying to keep the shocking development, that coincided with the day Army chief General V.K. Singh moved court over his date of birth row, under wraps.
"This is a story you should tell with extreme care and caution. But it so starkly characterises the current state of top-level politico-military relations that it is a folly to keep it under wraps, as the entire establishment has tried to do for a full 11 weeks now.
"It has also taken this team of The Indian Express reporters that long to establish the story and the dramatic developments during, say, about 18 very difficult hours on January 16-17 earlier this year," the daily claimed.
The report says that the central intelligence agencies reported an unexpected movement by a key military unit from the mechanised infantry based in Hisar in Haryana, and a large element of the airborne 50 Para Brigade based in Agra in Uttar Pradesh. The two units had almost reached Delhi's outskirts when Defence Minister A.K. Antony was informed. The government, in turn, used an old contingency plan by issuing a terror alert following which police started checking all Delhi-bound vehicles, causing a traffic snarl.
Prime Minister Singh was informed at the crack of dawn while Defence Secretary Shashi Kant Sharma was asked to cut short his visit to Malaysia and return immediately. Lt Gen Choudhary was summoned to the Defence Ministry at night and asked to return with details of what he termed as a routine exercise and ordered to ask both formations to halt and go back.
"[It is] absolutely baseless," Defence Minister Antony said. "It is usual, natural activity... nothing unusual, and we are absolutely sure of the patriotism of Indian armed forces."
Military exercise
The Army issued a statement which said, "Routine training at the formation level is carried out to check mobilisation according to standard operating procedure [SOP]. Almost all army units carry out this procedure at regular intervals. Once effectiveness is checked, the troops are called back. In this case too, the troops were called back according to SOP. In case of adverse weather conditions like fog, we need to test our mobilisation effectiveness."
Prime Minister Singh appealed to the nation not to cast aspersions on the Army chief's office. "The office of the Army Chief is exalted. All of us have an obligation to do nothing to lower its dignity and respect in public," the Prime Minister said.
While the opposition decided to trade with caution on such a sensitive issue, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence yesterday quizzed Defence Secretary Sharma and Army Vice Chief S.K. Singh and have asked for detailed reports by April 9.
