On Friday, Congress leader Salman Nizami waded into the debate about Indian Air Force officer who allegedly passed on information to ISI. Comparing the incident to the recent case of civilians killed by Army officers in Shopian, Nizami wrote on Twitter: “Hey Times Now : No hashtag in support of this ISI agent (IAF officer) Arun Marwaha? Oh! You defend only killer's of innocent Kashmiri's! (sic)”
Nizami had hit the headlines during the Gujarat Assembly elections when PM Modi had said: "There is one Congress youth leader called Salman Nizami, who is campaigning for Rahul Gandhi in Gujarat. He said on Twitter that Rahul Gandhi's father (Rajiv Gandhi) and grandmother (Indira Gandhi) had sacrificed their lives, while his great grandfather (Jawaharlal Nehru) was a freedom fighter. Okay, very good, we do not have a problem with that.”
He added: “Then he (a reference to Nizami) went on to ask that Modi should answer who is his father and mother.”
Congress distanced itself from Nizami’s comment with chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala calling him a BJP stooge, saying he had never heard of Salman Nizami. On his Twitter profile, Nizami claims to be Congress politician.
Earlier, to counter allegations of Congress that Salman Nizami didn’t belong to the Indian National Congress, the BJP’s Gujarat unit released photographs of Salman Nizami with Congress national spokesperson and senior leader in Gujarat, Shaktisinh Gohil.
Nizami later defended himself saying he had never mentioned the Army and wrote: “Those who lodged FIR against Major Aditya & demanded hz punishment question my patriotism, I nvr mentioned Aditya in my tweet infact exposed BJP-PDP hypocrisy ovr this issue. How long will u blame us for ur crimes? For me the killers are the rulers, who kill innocents for power!”
Indian Air Force Group Captain Arun Marwah facing espionage charges has been arrested and is undergoing questioning by the Special Cell of the Delhi Police, sources today said.
Marwah was handed over to the Special Cell's northern range on Wednesday after being interrogated for nearly 10 days by the counter intelligence wing of the IAF, a senior police official said. He has been booked under the Official Secrets Act (OSA) provisions and five days police custody has been granted by the court for questioning him, he said. Marwah, who was posted at the Air Force headquarters, was allegedly leaking classified documents to a woman through WhatsApp. He had befriended her through Facebook in December last year, the official said.
As per the complaint filed against Marwah by the Air Force, he was caught by the counter intelligence wing after he was found carrying a high-end phone at the headquarters, which are banned there. The counter intelligence wing is also probing whether he was part of any larger espionage ring. The IAF officially did not comment on the matter.
Punishment under the Official Secrets Act entails a jail term of up to seven years. The Supreme Court agreed to hear on Monday the plea of an Army officer's father that the FIR against his son, booked as an accused by the Jammu and Kashmir Police in the recent Shopian firing incident, be quashed.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud considered advocate Aishwarya Bhati's submission that the father's plea be heard on an urgent basis. The lawyer said the FIR has illegally been lodged against Major Aditya Kumar in connection with the firing incident in Shopian.
"We will hear it on Monday," the bench said.
Lieutenant Colonel Karamveer Singh said his son, a major in 10 Garhwal Rifles, was "wrongly and arbitrarily" named in the FIR as the incident relates to an Army convoy that was on bonafide military duty in an area under the AFSPA and was isolated by an "unruly and deranged" mob pelting stones, causing damage to military vehicles.
Three civilians were killed when Army personnel fired at a stone-pelting mob in Ganovpora village in Shopian, prompting the chief minister to order an inquiry into the incident.
The FIR was registered against personnel of 10 Garhwal Rifles, including Major Kumar, under sections 302 (murder) and 307 (attempt to murder) of the Ranbir Penal Code. The petitioner has sought directions for guidelines to protect the rights of soldiers and adequate compensation so that no Army personnel is harassed by initiation of criminal proceedings for bonafide actions in exercise of their duties.
It has also sought registration of FIR against persons involved in the terrorist activities which had caused damage to property of the government. Karamveer Singh said in his plea that his son's intention was to save Army personnel and property and the fire was inflicted "only to impair and provide a safe escape from a savage and violent mob engaged in terrorist activity".
The unruly mob was requested to disperse and not obstruct military in performance of their duties and not to damage government property but when the situation reached beyond control, a warning was issued to disperse, the plea said. The unruly behaviour of the "unlawful assembly" escalated and they got hold of a Junior Commissioned Officer and were in the process of lynching him when warning shots were fired to disperse the violent mob and protect public property, it submitted.
Singh also referred to last year's incident of a mob lynching DSP Mohd Ayub Pandith to apprise the top court about the situation in the state and the condition in which Army officials were working to control violent mobs in Kashmir.
"The petitioner is constrained to file the present writ petition for quashing of FIR, directly before this court in view of the extremely hostile situation on the ground, whereby an FIR has been registered by local police against the son of the petitioner, who is a serving Army officer and was performing bonafide duties as directed by the Union of India." The manner in which the lodging of the FIR has been portrayed and projected by the political leadership and administrative higher-ups reflects the extremely hostile atmosphere in the state, it said.
With inputs from PTI
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