Pak boat controversy: Coast Guard Board of Inquiry indicts DIG BK Loshali

A 3-member Indian Coast Guard Board of Inquiry (BoI) has reportedly indicted Coast Guard DIG BK Loshali for his public remark on 16 February at a function in Surat that he had ordered the Pakistani boat to be ‘blown off’ on new year’s eve, The Indian Express reported on Friday. [caption id=“attachment_2222792” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Coast Guard DIG BK Loshali.[/caption] The Indian Express reports, quoting sources, that the probe had found ‘substance to believe’ that Loshali made the remark. Loshali, who contradicted the Defence Ministry’s claim by saying he had ordered blowing up an intruding Pakistani boat off Porbandar coast on new year’s eve, made a U-turn soon after The Indian Express reported his remarks, claiming he was misquoted. However, The Indian Express uploaded the video of DIG B K Loshali in which he says that he ordered on 31 December night to “blow up that boat” “Let me tell you. I hope you remember 31st December night… We blew off that Pakistan… We have blown them off. I was there at Gandhinagar and I told at night, blow the boat off. We don’t want to serve them biryani,” he had said at a function in Surat. But as a controversy erupted over his claim, Loshali sang a different tune. “I was not privy to whatever was happening. I have been misquoted. I had mentioned that no anti-national element will be allowed to breach our coastal security and we are not going to serve them biryani. “The operation was classified in nature and its details were not shared (with me),” he had told reporters, adding it was his boss Inspector General, North West region, Kuldip Singh Sheoran who was in charge of the operation. Inspector General KR Nautiyal said in Delhi that that they had received a statement from Loshali who had denied making any such statement. What he said, Loshali claimed, was that “anti-national” elements won’t be served biriyani and dealt with according to the law of the land. Defence Ministry and Minister Manohar Parrikar had said soon after the incident that the boat set itself on fire when its crew were asked to surrender. With PTI inputs