Is defence ministry stolen?
Referring to the developments on the India-Pakistan border after Pulwama attack, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had remembered Rafale jets. In full glare of public, he said if he had Rafale jets, he could have answered Pakistan in its own language. He also claimed the opposition parties are conspiring against Rafale.
The whole process of Rafale agreement started during the UPA time. That government was very committed to getting Rafale for our armed forces. In some way, Modi is responsible for the delay in procuring Rafale because he wanted to remove HAL from the partner agreement and add his friend Ambani’s company Reliance. This was illegal. Today, this whole point has stopped Rafale from being handed over. Modi says there is nothing illegal in this, and ensured that SC had emphasized that this need not be probed. But the same Supreme Court has taken this up for hearing now.
If there is nothing illegal in this deal, why is the PM against a probe or investigation into this? It is his need as well to retain the trustworthiness in the matter that pertains to defence sector. Senior leader L K Advani had resigned from his post to facilitate inquiry when Hawala issue had surfaced. It is Modi’s prerogative as well that he orders an inquiry and proves his innocence through that in Rafale issue. But forget ordering an inquiry, he is deeply interested in destabilizing the CBI, by meddling with it. Now another major aspect has come to light regarding Rafale. The government has said to the Supreme Court that the Rafale agreement documents have been stolen from the defence ministry.
This statement is so steeped in irresponsibility that it is a terrible indication of how the government poorly perceives national security issues. On one hand, the government is arguing that The Hindu paper published the top secret and confidential documents compromising national security and hence the court has to act against this. But at the same time, can we hope that the defence ministry that is unable to safeguard documents can ever be able to protect the country?
Narendra Modi had said recently that the country is in ‘safe hands’. If this is true, how did such important documents go missing? How can the government that is favouring thieves within the defence ministry, even protect the country? And who is being benefited from such important documents going missing? If one understands who stands to be benefited from lost documents, we’d know who stole them.
The Hindu paper published series of reports based on the important documents. This proved the illegality in Rafale deal beyond doubt. Hence these are against the PM and his most favoured friend Ambani. What would the government’s response be, when it kept crying hoarse that the deal is clean and has no illegalities? Modi government has to answer these questions raised by the documents. Unfortunately, the government is playing petty by pointing fingers at The Hindu paper claiming this matter is for the opponents to argue since they procured the documents amounting to violation of confidentiality agreement.
If The Hindu hadn’t published these documents, the government would have kept the aspect of documents being stolen a secret from the Supreme Court. Since these documents are speaking against the PM, the benefit of doubt of their missing would help him. Hence it is natural to suspect who would have helped them go missing.
The fact that documents have gone missing from the defence sector has dealt a big blow to the defence ministry. Defence minister should have resigned from her post when hundreds of soldiers were killed during Pulwama attack as a matter of intelligence failure. No one owned the moral responsibility. After this, the capturing of our airforce pilot by Pakistan and his subsequent release left a huge dent on the internal security of the country. Now the government seems to have admitted somewhat surreptitiously that there have been illegalities in the Rafale deal by stating the documents are stolen. PM Modi has to take the moral responsibility and resign because he had taken the lead in this. He is directly being part of this deal which stole our defence ministry, nothing less.
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MP cruise boat tragedy: Search ops expanded to trace four missing passengers
Jabalpur (PTI): Army divers and disaster response teams on Saturday expanded their search at Bargi Dam in Madhya Pradesh to locate a man and three children still missing after the cruise boat tragedy that claimed nine lives two days ago, officials said.
With 28 of the 41 identified passengers onboard the ill-fated cruise boat rescued safely, police are preparing to register an FIR in connection with the accident that occurred at the reservoir in Jabalpur district on Thursday evening, they said.
The search radius has been expanded to 5 km in the backwaters of the Bargi Dam, located downstream of the Narmada River, area sub-divisional officer of police (SDOP) Anjul Ayank Mishra told PTI.
Nine people drowned in the incident, while 28 were rescued, and efforts are ongoing to trace the missing persons, he said.
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According to the police, more than 200 rescuers, including around 20 Army divers airlifted from Agra, began the search operation at 5 am on Saturday to trace Kamraj, an employee of the Ordnance Factory in Khamaria, his son Tamil (5), Vijay Soni (6) and Mayuram (5).
Mishra said that an inquest case has been registered and the post-mortem of nine deceased persons has been completed.
"Our priority is to search for the missing persons. We will soon register an FIR," he said.
Investigators have said that CCTV footage near the boarding point showed 43 people heading towards the ill-fated boat, and the names of 41 persons, who boarded the vessel, have been ascertained so far.
Collector Raghvendra Singh confirmed that a search is underway for four missing persons.
The rescue operation, being carried out by the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) and local divers, was briefly affected around 9 am due to strong winds.
The state government on Friday ordered a probe into the incident and dismissed three crew members after survivors alleged negligence and safety lapses, including failure to provide life jackets.
The government also banned the operation of similar vessels in the state.
The boat, operated by the state tourism department, sank during a sudden storm around 6 pm on Thursday, and the wreckage was retrieved from the dam water on Friday, after the rescuers confirmed that there were no more bodies inside.
Eyewitnesses have said that strong winds made the water choppy, prompting passengers to raise an alarm and ask the crew to steer the vessel towards the riverbank.
A survivor alleged negligence by the crew and described a last-minute scramble for life jackets.
