Dear Mr Patel,
I am writing this in reply to your article dated 11 Feb 2018 in FirstPost where you have once again palpably blamed the Jawans of Indian Armed Forces for indulging in Rapes, murders and letting off scot-free by successive governments. However, an elitist pen warrior operating from the comforts of your air-conditioned up-market Bangaluru home, with continued dependence on the world wide web of the internet, you are once again wrong in your allegations. I insist that not for the sake of all those Jawans sacrificing their lives and limbs in persistent battles to free Jammu and Kashmir from the clutches of Jihad but, also for the sake of the sanity of the profession that you earn your daily bread from.
If, you wish to report the so-called rapes and murders carried out by the Indian Army Jawans, you must go and stay at the grounds of action in Baramulla or in Pulwama or any other city or village of Kashmir from where the FIRs which, you claim, were turned down by the central government, would have originated from.
Mr Aakar Patel, you seem to have never cared about ethics of Journalism. My parent institution, the Indian Armed forces has a zero-tolerance policy on sexual abuse cases. Unlike, Mr Patel and the radical jihadist fighters Islam, whom the world addresses as terrorists, the forces have a very stringent policy and some very tough rules on prevention of sexual and other abuses by its personnel. The islamic state sympathisers and the propagators of Jihad have none.
Mr. Patel, you have quoted a question and its answer from the parliament proceedings. Since 2001, 18 years have passed and total 50 such cases were received by the Union Government. The reason cited by the minister of state in the Mod are, “denial / pendency of prosecution sanction is on account of lack of sufficient evidence to establish a prima facie case.”
This is one superb case of yellow journalism. The center did not approve those FIRs because there were no merits in those cases. In a blatant act of duplicity with your profession, Mr. Internet journalist – Aakar Patel, you are deliberately hiding the other side of the coin from the world.
The flag bearers of islamic Jihad from across the border came to India, armed with weapons, military training and a very abusive libido. The pathans, the pashtuns and all other foreign terrorists, once into our lands barge inside homes of local Kashmiris to seek shelter and food. They abused the women and defiled their dignity. That went on till the Indian Army didn’t dispatch them to where they belong.
While reporting non-registration of cases against Army Jawans, Mr Aakar, you have deliberately not mentioned even a single case of abuse by the Jihadists. Although one can very well understand the absence groundwork and lack of knowledge from you, your deliberate mislead about universal law of Justice that says, “accused is not guilty until proven so”, points towards your malafide intentions to blame the holiest institutions of India and its innocent subjects – the Jawans.
It is unfortunate that the mute sons of soil, the Jawans are always in the line of fire from activists like you – Mr. Patel, and from stone palters, terrorists and politicians alike. Such attempts are part of campaigns of misinformation to undermine the AFSPA and instigate its removal to let the whole state of Jammu and Kashmir slip out of India’s safe hands into a Jihadist slumber.
I am not saying that the Armed Forces are above criticism. But, Aakarwani was conspicuously silent when Batman system and supply of poor quality of food to the Jawans were debated.
No abuse, no rape, no murder can be ever be justified but at the same time neither are the blame game and fake activism of certain individuals and institutions.
Jai Hind.
Petty Officer Manan Bhatt, Veteran