Raises issue of FIR lodged against Army in J&K for Shopian incident; asks President Kovind to summon minister and ask for explanation about why FIR was allowed.
New Delhi: Defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman has fallen into the firing line of senior BJP leader Subramanian Swamy, who has written a strong complaint to the President, expressing displeasure over her handling of a police complaint against the Army in Jammu and Kashmir.
Swamy, who had earlier moved a notice against the minister in Parliament, has asked President Ram Nath Kovind to summon Sitharaman and seek an explanation on how an FIR was filed against Army soldiers for the Shopian firing incident, in which three civilians were killed last month.
In a strong letter, Swamy has questioned Sitharaman’s silence over a statement by J&K Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti that the FIR was registered against the Army with the permission and sanction of the defence minister.
“I had demanded the RM (Raksha Mantri) make a clarificatory statement on whether she had indeed given the J&K government the required sanction or nod for this treacherous FIR, which today has demoralised the Army whose jawans and officers are getting killed almost daily in J&K,” Swamy wrote.
Invoking Article 77(1) of the Constitution, which says all executive actions of the government are taken in the name of the President, Swamy has asked Kovind to seek a clarification from Sitharaman and “take action you deem fit”. Swamy also said that he had written a letter to PM Narendra Modi on the matter as well.
The Shopian incident, in which a stone-pelting mob was fired at by the Army after its soldiers were severely injured, has become a major controversy after an FIR was registered accusing a young Army Major for the killing. A civilian crowd had started pelting stones on an Army convoy passing through the Ganovpora village, knocking off a junior commissioned officer and resulting in injuries to others.
Soldiers fired on the crowd after the situation went out of control, the Army has said.