For the last many years, the entire debate over helping Kashmir restore normalcy is surrounding special laws especially the AFSPA that is mother of the mess. The crux of the discourse is that this law is subverting the normal system to prevent justice delivery and protecting the human life from getting consumed as collateral damage.
But that is just one aspect of the crisis that the AFSPA has created. The other side of the coin, now being unveiled, is how the unbridled powers and resources are helping the security grid to impact a governance structure. The case of former army chief V K Singh’s Technical Services Division (TSD) is the most vital story about what this law can do and nobody can catch hold of anybody.
TSD, according to reports appearing in Delhi based media for a long time, is a super-structure that was created within the military intelligence set up of the army. For good or the bad reasons, most of TSDs actions have taken place in Kashmir in the two years of its functioning during which it spent Rs 20 crore, partly not accounted for, so far.
This unit purchased costly interception equipment for eavesdropping the policy makers within and outside the defence ministry and once it was detected the machinery was destroyed. It was located in Jammu and the machines were thrown into Chenab.
It founded an NGO that was given enough of money. This organization was based in Srinagar. It was an off-shoot of this NGO that had filed a PIL in high court involving Bikram Singh, then brigadier and now the army chief, in an encounter. The objective of this case was apparently to prevent Bikram Singh from becoming the army chief. Funds to this network were also managed by the TSD. Interestingly, the NGO is reported to have closed its shop and its office is closed.
And now has come the final blow by a Delhi newspaper claiming that TSD gave Rs 1.19 crore to a minister to topple the Omar Abdullah government. Though the minister has denied the allegation, it does not diminish the worth of the report that top army officers have put together after investigating the TSD.
Resources, access, and manpower are otherwise an explosive mixture. When a situation offers authority to this combination and the law impunity, it becomes a dangerous cocktail. It can subvert systems established by law and tradition.
But people in politics know that every strong institution always had its voice in J&K’s governance structure. And it is nothing new. PDP and NC, the two main parties of Kashmir, have been pin-pointing ‘proxies’ in each other and terming them multiple representatives – people who are representing many power sources including people. In the last government a senior minister had coined the word “buffer state” to refer to these ‘free floating electrons’. Now a situation has arisen suggesting that this power can even be used to destabilize elected governments, it needs to be investigated.
