The Leh-based army corps, which was in the news recently for the alleged sexual exploitation of a woman officer by a major general, has ordered two separate courts of inquiry to go into the pilferage of special rations meant for troops in Siachen as well as high-altitude jackets and parachutes in Nubra Valley.
The army has said that it will co-operate with police once two courts of inquiry, initiated by it into the pilferage cases, are completed. Police could summon the concerned officials if they were not satisfied with the army’s report, sources said.
The army and police were initially at loggerheads after police summoned three senior officers of the army’s strategic 14 Corps for questioning in connection with the pilferage and sale of high-altitude clothing and rations.
Confessions made
Police have also arrested 31 people, including shopkeepers, in various areas in northern Kashmir. A few of them have made confessional statements before magistrates in which they named senior army officers who allegedly supplied the materials to them, sources said.
The army had filed a strong complaint against Leh’s Senior Superintendent of Police Alok Kumar for his alleged aggressive attitude towards its personnel deployed in the Himalayan town located in north Kashmir.
Police have been sceptical about the army’s inquiries as the force had failed to nab the culprits behind a earlier scam related to the pilferage of petrol and diesel meant for the 14 Corps, which was set up in the aftermath of the 1999 Kargil conflict to streamline the army’s operational commitments in the region.
However, after the army found no takers for its complaints, it gave an assurance to police that it would co-operate in the probe once the two courts of inquiry were completed, sources said.
Copies of the findings of the two inquiries will be handed over to the police and after this, if required, the concerned army officials will be produced before the police at Leh for questioning, the sources said.
A spokesman at army headquarters said that one inquiry was at an advanced stage and the other one would be completed once the chief judicial magistrate gave the army permission to examine five civilian witnesses.