The Indian Express has learnt that Brigadier Ajay Saxena, the seniormost officer named as an accused by the CBI, has written a letter to Lt General Madan Gopal, Director General of Military Operations (DGMO), pointing out how five Army personnel (four officers and a JCO) have been singled out for “harassment, ignominy, humiliation, agony and financial strain” over an operation conducted jointly by the Army and J&K Police.

Brig Saxena has said that the operation was ordered by a senior Army officer (Sector Commander) of the Rashtriya Rifles on the basis of information provided by the SSP of Anantnag.

Brig Saxena’s wife, Sushma Saxena, has also written to the Army chief’s wife Anupama Singh who’s the president of the Army Wives Welfare Association (AWWA).

Saying she was expressing the views of wives of all five officers who have been indicted by the CBI, Sushma Saxena wrote: “If our husbands are prosecuted in this case, then every husband who is fighting in the Valley in the future is also liable to face such action... all our husbands have done is obey orders and carry out operations based on information provided by a Senior Commander and the police.”

The circumstances of the Pathribal encounter have now been outlined by the indicted officers for the Army top brass. The DGMO is understood to have been told that:

• The Pathribal encounter took place in an area notified as a Disturbed Area under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1990 and that protection should be provided to the five officers named as “accused” by the CBI.

• That two of the five persons killed in the operation were on the list of active overground workers maintained by the Rashtriya Rifles and that the CBI probe revealed that a third among the dead also had terrorist links.

• That during the relevant period (command of Brig Saxena), the 7 RR unit received over 50 awards, including a dozen Sena medals. In two years, the unit eliminated 78 militants.

• That the CBI chargesheet had serious operational ramifications for future Kashmir operations since it would create distrust in the rank and file about verbal orders and posed a threat to the lone Kashmiri accused whose intelligence inputs had led to the elimination of 40 terrorists.

Though the CBI’s legal panel rules that the agency does not require sanction for prosecuting Army officers because killing of innocent persons in a fake encounter cannot be taken as discharge of “official duty”, the Army is gearing to challenge that view in the Srinagar court.

The Army’s counter is that the Pathribal encounter was a joint Police-Army operation, carried out on intelligence provided by the J&K police and that trial would jeopardise further joint counter-insurgency operations.

ritu.sarin@expressindia.com