Leaking Army info amounts to treason: VK Singh

Former Army chief General VK Singh today defended the workings of the covert Technical Support Division of the Indian Army and said that those who had leaked information about its working should be tried for treason. “If we discuss the workings of an intelligence unit then it is equivalent to treason,” Singh said in a press conference today. “We are telling our enemies about our intelligence. It should be probed how these reports are coming out,” the former army chief said. He demanded an investigation against those leaking such reports and those publishing it. Singh said the timing of reports was questionable and they had helped suppress other issues that were of greater concern. The money that was given to NGOs or other groups was never for political or personal purposes and was meant for certain projects to create stability in Jammu and Kashmir, he said. [caption id=“attachment_1130597” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Is the former Army chief right? PTI[/caption] “It was meant to get people away from separatist events. It was meant to support the government and not anything else,” the former army chief said. Reports have alleged that the Technical Support Division, which was patronised by the former Army chief, had been working to destablise the Jammu and Kashmir government and even prevent his successor General Bikram Singh from taking over. An internal inquiry report has reportedly stated that the unit may have been using funds and not providing accounts for them. “All the money was accounted for… If someone says that there were no accounts for this unit then it is false,” Singh said today. “It helped the Army operate in areas where the local population wasn’t against them,” he said. He said that the money was used to fund infrastructure projects in Kashmir that helped build goodwill among local people. “I commanded the whole Army and I did not know what a unit of 100 soldiers was doing,” he said, while denying knowledge of the inner workings of the unit. He said that similar operations have been carried out by various units since Independence and it was carried out in a covert manner since the Army couldn’t be seen carrying out such actions. “There is a degree of anonymity that goes into these payments. I don’t want to reveal the workings of this unit,” he said. “Do we reveal how RAW and IB work? Do we question it? If we question it then we are anti-national,” the former army chief said.