Edited excerpts from an email communication sent to the Editor of The Hindu byGeneral (retired) V.K. Singh :
Your esteemed newspaper has published two or three articles on September 21 and 22 that allege that the Army (namely, the Southern Command) went into a tizzy destroying documents a few days before I retired as the Army Chief. The correspondent had sought my response by email, and my short response that he was fully aware of the issues including the framing of the individual involved was also published, dwarfed by banner headlines of the main report. Incidentally, the correspondent had sent exactly the same mail to me in April this year while he was with The Times of India . He did not do this great story of his at that time.
After going through the attachments and the three stories, I have no idea what your correspondent is trying to say or allude to. This is a story completely out of sync with the journalistic tradition of The Hindu . The two main underlying points seem to be:
(a) TSD was set up under me, and (b) documents were destroyed by a board set up for the purpose by the Southern Command five days prior to my retirement, some of which referred to the TSD.
Once again your newspaper is carrying stories planted by people with vested interests. Yes, the TSD was set up during my tenure. Perhaps you are not aware of the facts, but there was nothing underhand about its setting up, as it was done on the orders of the Government of India after the dastardly Mumbai attacks. What you, and perhaps your readers need to know, is that it was disbanded shortly after I retired, by officers who were entrusted with the responsibility of defending the country, for reasons which were purely personal. These officers (you don’t have to look far, be it J&K’s Janglat Mandi encounter or the Jorhat dacoity case) have used the media to regularly plant stories, and it defies logic how these fabricated reports continue to get published despite the presumed screening of articles by responsible editors. The consequences of disbanding the organisation have already been tragically felt on many an occasion, with quite a few of our own people being killed in cold blood.
And as for the shredding of documents, just use common sense – what does the Southern Command have to do with the TSD? Your same correspondent has implied it was the Chief’s ‘secret army’ which then presumably reported to me. Why on earth would a subordinate headquarters be dealing with a ‘top secret’ organisation?
In the last five years, all sorts of insinuating (and some accusatory) articles have been written. Time and again, it has been obvious that there isn’t an iota of truth in them. Still, the attacks keep coming.
May I, in all humility, with utmost respect for the freedom of the press, request you to kindly set the record straight?
