Please don’t tell us how to fight, angry Army tells prying babus

The Army, however, found a good use forthem for ground roles. They have been used against ground targets every time the firing from across the LC has gone beyond `bearable limits’, as an ADA officer put it. In this new role they have proven to be fairly useful. The problems for the Army, however, cropped up when the move to regularise their use was initiated.

Northern Command, which is solely responsible for the management of the LC, made a request to have the ZSU-23 guns transferred to be held as `sector stores’. By this change in designation, the guns would have remained in permanent possession of the local formations, rather than the ADA units moving from LC duties to peace stations. This request was acceded to by the Directorate General Air Defence Artillery and Military Operations Directorate at Army Headquarters, from where it was sent to the MoD.

While the MoD processed the request without delay, say South Block sources, its Finance Division nevertheless thought otherwise, and that is where the file stuck.

The objection raised by theFinance Division was as to who gave permission to the Army under which it changed the operational role of the ZSU-23 guns. `Under whose authority did the Army use the ZSU-23 guns on ground targeting roles’, queried the Additional Financial Advisor Defence Services (AFA DS) in the Finance Division. The AFA DS is a joint secretary-level official. When the matter was taken up with him, say the South Block sources, and the operational logic explained, it was his Desk Officer who produced an even more curious query. He is believed to have exclaimed, said the same sources, that `We have provided them with light and medium machine guns for ground roles. And besides, their ammunition is cheaper than that of the ZSU-23s’.

This really got the Army’s goat, said an ADA officer. “How we conduct our operations, and what weaponry we use to execute those operations is really only our business. After all we live there, fight there, and know how best to tackle the situation”, said the officer. The same officials have,on 28 May, been ordered by the Defence Minister to undergo an experience at Siachen Glacier. His ire was on account of these officials delaying the purchase of snowmobiles for the soldiers posted there. The Defence Minister has also asked the Defence Secretary to give him a completion report of the officials’ tour within a month.