New Delhi: Media reports alleging that two highly sophisticated “off-air interceptors” were being used to monitor the conversation of ministers and other senior UPA government functionaries in South Block and North Block, sounded the death knell of the Technical Support Division (TSD). As this newspaper reported earlier, TSD was a tiny specialised unit of the Indian Army and was formed in May 2010 after General V.K. Singh became the Chief of Army Staff. The TSD was painted as a rogue unit by these media reports, which led to its disbanding in May 2012. The TSD had carried out several operations that prevented 26/11 Mumbai-type attacks from taking place. The TSD was exactly the sort of highly specialised intelligence unit needed to pre-empt Pulwama type clandestine terrorist preparations. Its sabotage by vested interests has led to a critical gap in military intelligence capability, say defence experts.
The media reports, quoting Army “sources”, terrorised the political dispensation of the time by claiming that the TSD was using these interceptors to spy on the phone calls of even the Defence Minister. But there was a “slight” problem to such claims—the military does not have any record whatsoever of the purchase of these interceptors. And this when the record books of the military log in even the purchase of the boots of a soldier in multiple places. The existence of these interceptors was also not mentioned by the Army when it carried out court-martial proceedings of one of the officers who was a part of the TSD.
“The interceptors and the rogue nature of their work existed only in media reports. The Army, even during its internal proceedings which were started post May 2012, never mentioned anything about the existence of any such interceptors,” a government official told The Sunday Guardian.
“Imagine a Defence Minister reading in newspapers that an Army unit was intercepting his calls and that the same unit was also trying to topple a state government. And when the Defence Minister goes to the Army Chief (not General V.K. Singh) to seek answers, the Army Chief too says that this unit is a ‘rogue’. What would the Defence Minister do? He will not interfere when the unit is shut down. And that is what happened with the TSD,” a senior government source told The Sunday Guardian.
Highly placed sources said that the formation of TSD was approved, in writing, by the then Defence Minister, A.K. Antony when he signed the operational directive to develop covert capability of the Indian Army so that it could take pre-emptive and retaliatory action against terrorist groups.
“It was a covert unit, not a clandestine unit dealing primarily in humint (human intelligence). A clandestine unit carries out the operation and claims the success or the failure of the operation. A covert unit does not exist in the eyes of the public. It neither claims its success nor its failure. TSD was a covert unit. It cannot claim that two high ranking terror group leaders were picked up and brought to India by the TSD, nor how this unit was very close to taking out a head of a terrorist group who has brought innumerable sufferings to the country by way of terrorist strikes and killing of Army soldiers,” a senior Army officer stated. Even Pakistan’s own covert units, including Lashkar-e-Tayyaba had raised the “issue” of TSD in multiple circles.
Sources who are aware of the matter said that TSD was mandated to target high ranking terrorists by penetrating deep into the enemy territory, carrying out psychological warfare, both internally and externally and pre-empting terror strikes by whatever means necessary. “No Army Chief, traditionally wants to have a unit like TSD under him since it has never been done before. V.K. Singh, however, when he became the chief, decided to go with it. Now, I don’t think any Army Chief will ever raise any such unit because of the baseless controversies that were stuck to it,” another senior Army officer said.
According to officers, the TSD successfully managed to thwart the supply of arms and ammunition that the Naxals in Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh were getting from Northeast based insurgents.
“Such arms supply to the Naxals via this route had virtually dried up when the TSD was there, as TSD officers were very ‘strong’ and active in the Northeast. Once the TSD was disbanded, Naxals started getting the weapons again, and in May 2013 the Naxals killed almost the entire leadership of the Chhattisgarh unit of the Congress by using the weapons that they had received from Northeast based insurgent groups. One can ask a hypothetical question: would the Congress leaders in Chhattisgarh have survived if the TSD was there? The answer is not that difficult to guess,” stated the officer.
Another senior Army officer, who is aware of the details regarding the TSD, said that fictitious reports were leaked from Army Headquarters regarding the “rogue” nature of the TSD to the media.
“Media carried reports that the TSD had paid money to an MLA in the state of Jammu and Kashmir to topple the state government. Can one Independent MLA topple any state government? Each and every penny that was used by the TSD was accounted for and when the dust settled the Army too found that there was no discrepancy. It was a concerted effort launched at various levels, in a planned manner, to destroy the TSD,” the Army officer recalled.
The officer, who was a part of the establishment which was working closely with the TSD when it was brought down, recalled, “The TSD was doomed the day Lt General D.S. Suhag, Brigadier Abhay Krishna and Colonel Srikumar were given show-cause notices in the ‘Jorhat Dacoity’ case that took place in December 2011, and the media linked it as V.K. Singh trying to break the line of succession. The media forgot that it was V.K. Singh who had recommended Suhag for promotion to Army Commander. Suhag was show-caused for his failure to control a rogue unit and the dacoity that took place under his watch. Later, a joint secretary in the Ministry of Defence got into a personal fight with V.K. Singh and took the TSD down. The leaks to the media were made at the behest of this joint secretary,” he stated.
The value of TSD and the damage its closure cost the Indian Army in the long run, can perhaps be best summarised by the observations of the then Deputy Chief of Army, Lt General D.S. Thakur, who while appearing before a related Army proceeding, said, “It is sad to see that the witch hunt against the Intelligence Corps Officers who put their careers and lives on the line and took grave risks in conducting these operations in the service of the nation, still continues. It is also sad that, we don’t realise what damage we have been doing to the overall morale and effectiveness of our Intelligence Corps. By pursuing such inquiries we are only sending message to our Intelligence Corps personnel not to take risks and play safe. It is our officers at the apex level who should squarely take the blame for this state of affairs as without vibrant Intelligence Corps operations, we will be blinded in the Army.”