`Army never sought to cross LoC during Kargil conflict’

He was fielding questions at a “meet the press” programme along with B G Verghese and Lt Gen (retd) K K Hazari, also members of the committee, on its report which was placed in Parliament yesterday. Denying that there was any delay in air strikes against Pakistani intruders on Kargil heights, he said it required preparation for escalation.

Subrahmanyam said the Indian Army sought IAF’s help on May 8 and transport aircraft started operations immediately for carrying men and material. “There was a debate on operating helicopters at that point of time … For operating fixed wing aircraft we needed to be prepared for escalation,” he explained. The western air command and the southwestern air command were placed on “full alert” before the `go ahead’ was given by the Government for air strikes on the occupied heights, he said. The cabinet committee on security (CCS) authorised use of air power on May 25.

Three relevant paragraphs on the issue have been deleted from the the KRC report which said the Air Chief had maintained that if air power was to be used, the country should be prepared for a Pakistani response.

Subrahmanyam denied that government agencies let down their guard after Prime Minister Vajpayee’s Lahore bus trip in February last year. “Our assessment of the government agencies is that all of them were sceptical of the outcome of the bus diplomacy,” he pointed out.

He, however, asserted that the then Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif was aware of the operation during Vajpayee’s trip to Lahore. “Gen Musharraf (then army chief) had discussed it with Sharif in November, 1998 and Sharif visited the area (PoK) in the first week of February,” he said adding that former Army chief Gen Aslam Beg had written about it in Pakistani media and there were no denials from the Sharif government.

To question on whether there was any delay on the part of the government in initiating action to evict the intruders, he said, “the actual military handling of the issue did not require any governmental approval … On May 3, the intrusions were detected and by May 11, the 15 corps had deployed adequate troops and the following day the entire northern command went on alert.”

Asked whether the intelligence failure and other lapses mentioned in the report called for criminal prosecution of chiefs of the agencies concerned, Subrahmanyam said, “it is for the government to decide.”

He said the committee had found that there was no real sharing of information between the Army and the other agencies though there should be sharing on a “need-to-know” basis. “There has been no adequate institutionalisation of tasking and prioritisation.”