New Delhi, Sept. 21 : Union Minister of State for External Affairs and former chief of army staff General (Retired) V.K. Singh on Monday categorically rubbished a report appearing in a leading Indian daily that dozens of documents on a military intelligence unit that he had created had been destroyed on his orders before his retirement.
Referring to the report that has appeared in The Hindu today, General (Retired) V.K. Singh said, “This was a scripted story and was given to this journalist (of The Hindu). This reporter has been sold out and is a pawn in someone else’s game. It is possible that the person who scripted this story and gave it to the journalist was part of Jorhat dacoity case”
“If there is any truth to this story, something would have come out in the court martial. This journalist belongs to that category of journalists for whom I have a word.maybe worse. I have always stood by my convictions, and have never given or will give wrong orders. The army ethos that I propagated was, if something is wrong, stand up and say so,” he added.
“If you are trying to slander an organisation that works in the national interest, then I question your patriotism,” General (Retired) Singh said further.
General (Retired) Singh said, “There must be a reason behind this story and he (the reporter) must answer. I have complained against him to the PCI (Press Council of India) and would like to know what action has been initiated against him.”
He maintained that the reporter of The Hindu would have had some “profit motive” to write such a story.
General (Retired) Singh’s rebuttal came on a day when The Hindu came out with a lead story that said that the former was just days away from retiring as army chief in 2012, and had ordered the destruction of dozens of documents on a military intelligence unit that he had created and whose activities and funding had attracted widespread scrutiny.
According to documents perused by The Hindu, between May 22 and May 25, 2012, the Southern Army Command based in Pune moved very quickly to assemble two different boards of officers to carry out the complete destruction of all documents in its custody on Technical Services Division (TSD) – the controversial military intelligence unit Gen. Singh had set up in 2010.
General Singh retired on May 31, 2012 and later joined the BJP, and is now Minister of State for External Affairs in the Narendra Modi government. (ANI)
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