On board PMs aircraft Distressed by claims made by former Army Chief General V K Singh that the Army has been paying off politicians in Jammu and Kashmir,the government has decided to investigate each of these assertions as well as probe the findings of the Army inquiry into the Technical Support Division. Unit set up by V K Singh used secret funds to try and topple J&K govt,block Bikram Singh: Army probe Unwilling to divulge details,top government sources said today that the former Army Chiefs statements have done enormous damage to Indias efforts in Kashmir. The Army has no business paying politicians and if it has,its completely wrong. And that needs to be looked into. But lets not jump to conclusions yet. Government confirms Army secret report on 'undesirable activities' in Gen V K Singh's 'rogue' unit Even though the government has not made any elaborate statements to counter General Singh,the top echelons are seething in anger at his utterances with officials sources underlining that this is not expected from an officer who has held a position of trust. They feel that all the toil to cement democracy and democratic institutions in J&K have suffered a setback. CBI must probe V K Singh's claim on J&K,says Farooq Abdullah At the same time,the government does not want to take these allegations on face value. We cannot just take his word and act. We have to first know whether all this was actually done and then fix it. Even Ghulam Hassan Mir has denied receiving any money. So we need to look into this further and see whether there is any truth in it, the source said. Army has paid all ministers in J&K for 'stabilising' the state,says V K Singh On the findings of the Armys internal inquiry into TSDs operations,first reported by The Indian Express and where the payment to Mir was revealed,sources said,the government will examine each of those aspects separately and in detail. However,no decision has been taken on a CBI probe. These are different aspects. We need to look at this at various levels. In the (TSD) inquiry also,they claim to have paid money. Its not established. The priority clearly is to first carry out a proper forensics of what happened through a detailed fact-finding exercise and once that is done,do a systemic intervention to rectify processes and take steps to prevent any recurrence. Overall,the entire episode has not gone down well with the government,especially the fact that it will have to deal with diplomatic consequences of these remarks. Sources said that Gen Singh had targeted all chief ministers of Jammu & Kashmir by alleging that such funding has been under way since Independence a chance for Pakistan to rake up the issue and also damage Indias case on cross-LoC violence. Such is the anger within the government that theres a chorus for some decisive action but coupled with that is a sense of caution against the fallout on intelligence agencies,especially after references to purported Indian covert operations have also started doing the rounds. The Indian Express had decided to delete these references in its report.
