E-Paper
Medal for intelligence official who sent first Kargil alert on Pak troops
An intelligence official who reported a build-up of Pakistani forces in Kargil in 1998 won a gallantry award on Sunday, 18 years after his warnings alarmed the intelligence bureau chief to send a rare signed note to then PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
An intelligence official who reported a build-up of Pakistani forces in Kargil in 1998 won a gallantry award on Sunday, 18 years after his warnings alarmed the intelligence bureau chief to send a rare signed note to then PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
Chandra Sen Singh, a young intelligence bureau official in 1998, was posted in Leh when he generated several reports on the growing presence of Pakistani troops across the Line of Control (LoC) on the Pakistani side.
The documents alarmed then IB chief Shyamal Datta, who sent a rare signed note to the government – in June 1998, nearly a year before fighting broke out in Kargil -- and set in motion a chain of events that saw India emerge victorious in the war next summer.
“As a young assistant central intelligence officer-2 Singh kept on generating hard and pinpointing reports about Pakistani build-up in the months preceding the Kargil attack,” said Arun Chaudhary, a former IB special director then posted in the Kashmir unit of the bureau.
Singh was one of seven people awarded the President’s police medal gallantry (PPMG) on the eve of Independence Day. In all, more than 1,000 people were honoured with gallantry awards and medals. The government rarely publicly honours IB officials – whose work is shrouded in secrecy – to avoid revealing sensitive national security details.
The only other well-known exception to this trend was current national security adviser Ajit Doval, who won the Kirti Chakra for his services during the 1988 Operation Black Thunder to flush out militants from Amritsar’s Golden Temple.
Months before fighting broke out in Kashmir’s Kargil and Batalik sectors, the IB generated more than 40 reports including Dutta’s singed note, which warned local commanders, the army headquarters and India’s political leadership.
“When our officials met local army commanders, they also took it causally. But Singh continued to generate quality reports on Pak troop build-up and their later occupation of Indian patrol posts at high peaks in Kargil ,” said a former IB official who wants to remain anonymous.
The then number two in the IB, AS Dulat, wrote in his book ‘Kashmir: The Vajpayee Years’ that after the almost simultaneous nuclear tests by India and Pakistan in 1998, intelligence operatives noticed ‘unusual’ movement of troops and weaponry just across the Kargil sector on the Pakistani side.
Dulat said he took the local field unit‘s reports to Datta who told him to draw a note and send it to the government. But Dulat told his boss that it should go with Datta’s signature.
So Datta signed the note that was sent to the prime minister, home minister, cabinet secretary, home secretary and director general, military operations. That way June, 1998, a good 11 months before hostilities began in Kargil.
Due to his exemplary work, Singh was given an out-of-turn promotion. He is now an assistant director in the IB. “His gallantry medal remained pending due to administrative reasons,” said an IB official.
The intelligence reports on Pakistani build-up and alleged army inaction over them has resulted in a long-running feud between former IB officials and general VP Malik, who was army chief at the time of Kargil intrusion.
Malik wrote in his book that intelligence agencies kept harping on the presence of jihadi militants and didn’t generate a report on a planned armed intrusion. Many have attributed the delay in India’s response to the RAW and IB reporting directly to the prime minister and not sharing their reports laterally.