“Imagine a Defence Minister (A K Antony) reading in newspapers that an Army unit was intercepting his calls and that the Technical Supports Division (TDS) was also trying to topple a state (Jammu and Kashmir) government. And when the Defence Minister goes to the Army Chief to seek answers, the Army Chief too says that this unit is a rogue. What would the Defence Minister do?”
Yes, you guessed it right. The Defence Minister would wind up the unit. In fact, this is what exactly happened.
Why was TSD disbanded?
After Mumbai terror attacks, formation of TDS was approved by Antony for developing covert capability of the Indian Army to take pre-emptive and retaliatory action against terrorist groups.
TSD is a covert operation agency, activities of which are directly related to the safety of the soldiers fighting on the borders, retribution on the enemy and the security of the citizens. By its very nature, TSD operation was top secret.
It was, in fact, mandated to target high ranking terrorists by penetrating deep into the enemy territory, carrying out psychological warfare, both internally and externally and pre-empting terror strikes by whatever means necessary.
TSD, therefore, successfully managed to check 26/11 Mumbai-type attacks from taking place.
The decision to finish off TSD was political and was done to show former Army Chief V K Singh in a bad light.
The disbandment story begins from Gen Singh’s allegation that he was offered Rs 14 crore bribe by Lieutenant General (retd) Tejinder Singh for the procurement of Tetra truck. He complained to Antony, but nothing happened.
Thereafter, Tejinder Singh tried to blackmail him. He allegedly bribed a clerk named Shyam Das to get classified information from TSD.
At this point of time, the role of paid media came into the picture.
This media started publishing fake stories, accusing army of snooping telephones of important officers in the Defence Ministry and carrying out unauthorised operations in Jammu and Kashmir against the state government there.
While the news of General Singh’s age row, Tetra truck and phone tapping charges were splashed all over in media, yet another breach of security happened. Tejinder Singh, alongwith an Indian Express reporter tried to barge into the premises of TSD.
The fake new peddling did not end here. The then Editor-in-Chief of Indian Express, Shekhar Gupta, published jumped in with his own story. First time in the Indian history, the Indian army was accused of trying to overthrow a democratic government.
Thereafter, the left-liberal and Lutyens brigade bayed for Gen Singh’s blood. They ironically feared snooping of their favorite contacts and their dirty deals.
They also found TSD very disturbing, though its jurisdiction was only border areas and beyond. Or, were they afraid of TSD smelling the nexus between Pakistan and Indian politician, journalist, babu or industrialist.
The Pasta media did not stop there, they spun stories about TSD using money to topple Jammu and Kashmir government led by Omar Abdullah.
It also tried creating a chasm in the army by alleging that the TSD filed a PIL against next Army chief Bikram Singh, by calling 2001 encounter, carried out by Bikram Singh, as fake. Therafter, the witch hunt began. All the recordings collected by TSD were burnt and instruments destroyed, besides harassed officers and sent them on punishment postings.
Soon an enquiry was conducted under Lt Gen Vinod Bhatia, but some details of it were leaked to the press.
The enquiry alleged that TSD had carried out eight operations in neighbouring countries and a secessionist leader from Pakistan was paid money.
Here, some questions needs to be answered.
1) Why no enquiry was made on leaking of such classified information to media? 2) Who informed media about spying instruments and possibility of snooping? 3) Who leaked the movement of troops and why the fake news of coup tolerated? 4) How did Lt Gen Vinod Bhatia’s media selectively leaked to media?
The news about eight covert operations, especially gave enough ammunition to Pakistan in claiming victimhood against India. 5) Who is responsible for this loss?
6) Why TSD’s operations were stopped before completion of enquiry? 7) Why media trail was done? 8) Why the army allowed political pressure to close it down? 9) Why a civilian agency was recommended to look into this case? 11) Why the enquiry was discussed publicly? By law, it should have been heard by military court.
After TDS’ disbandement, its need was heavily felt. The naxals started getting weapons. In May 2013, they killed almost the entire leadership of Congress unit in Chhattisgarh by using the weapons supplied by Northeast insurgent groups. It could have also prevented Samba and Pulwama-type clandestine terrorist attacks.
So, What Is This Syndicate?
You may find answers in Vohra Committee report, which throws light on a mafia, popularly called Hamam, running a parallel government. So, was this Hamam behind sabotaging TSD?
Let’s peep into the coincidence cases to seek answers.
Coincidence No. 1: Shekhar Gupta was the one who published the coup story
Coincidence No. 2: He published classified findings of Lt Gen Bhatia report.
Coincidence No. 3: He is accused by Wikileaks for working for a front organisation of US intelligence Agency through email exchange.
Coincidence No. 4: In a video talk, Gupta is giving a suggestion to Pakistan on, how to build pressure on India by fomenting uprisings in Jammu and Kashmir, so that the Indian government retaliates, using force.
Coincidence No. 5: Gupta is one of the three journalists named by Christian Michel to influence public opinion on Augusta Westland case.
Coincidence No. 6: Prannoy James Roy, cousin of Arundhati Roy, started NDTV in 1980’s. He got a contract from Doordarshan at Rs 2 lakh per episode. Former Doordarshan DG Bhaskar Ghose’s daughter Sagarika Ghose and son-in-law Rajdeep Sardesai became important figures in NDTV later.
After some time, NDTV and Rupert Murdoch’s Star TV formed a joint venture and was launched from official residence of Prime Minister IK Gujral, who had problems with RAW, which resulted in losing vital assets built by it.
NDTV is accused of receiving Rs 7015 per share in 2018 for its share, which were priced at Rs 45 (159 times) allegedly from GE subsidiaries. Then, GE was trying to bag 16,000 crore deal from Indian Railways.
The TSD episode remains a black spot in the annals of India’s history, wherein we get the glimpse of politician-bureaucrat-intellectual nexus, which brought down the Army’s brilliantly thought-out unit.
Note: All the links of the published articles are in Sumona Chakraborty’s tweet.