Faced with a controversy over the pilferage of food and clothes meant for troops on the Siachen glacier, the army has finally agreed to cooperate with Jammu and Kashmir Police after its attempts to thwart the probe into the matter were countered by the state administration.
The army has said it will cooperate with police once two courts of inquiry, initiated by it into the pilferage cases, were completed. Police could summon the concerned officials if they were not satisfied with the army's report, sources said.
The army had filed a strong complaint against Leh's Senior Superintendent of Police Alok Kumar for his alleged aggressive attitude towards its personnel deployed in the Himalayan town located in north Kashmir.
Telephone calls were made to senior government officials even from the Udhampur-based Northern Command, responsible for the whole of Jammu and Kashmir, complaining against Kumar, a 1997 batch IPS officer from the state cadre.
However, after the army found no takers for its complaints, it gave an assurance to police that it would cooperate in the probe once the two courts of inquiry were completed, sources in Jammu and Kashmir's home department said.
Copies of the findings of the two inquiries will be handed over to police and after this, if required, the concerned army officials will be produced before police at Leh for questioning, the sources said.
A spokesman at army headquarters said one inquiry was at an advanced stage and the other one will be completed once the chief judicial magistrate gave the army permission to examine five civilian witnesses.
The Leh-based army corps, which was in the news recently for the alleged sexual exploitation of a woman officer by a major general, has ordered two separate courts of inquiry to go into the pilferage of special rations meant for troops in Siachen as well as high-altitude jackets and parachutes in Nubra Valley.
The army and police were initially at loggerheads after police summoned three senior officers of the army's strategic 14 Corps for questioning in connection with the pilferage and sale of high-altitude clothing and rations.
Evidence gathered by police so far has pointed to the possible involvement of a brigadier in the scam. Police have registered 11 FIRs since July after seizing food packets and other equipment meant for Siachen that were being sold in local markets, sources said.
Police have also arrested 31 people, including shopkeepers, in various areas in northern Kashmir. A few of them have made confessional statements before magistrates in which they named senior army officers who allegedly supplied the materials to them, sources said.
Police have been skeptical about the army's inquiries as the force had failed to nab the culprits behind a earlier scam related to the pilferage of petrol and diesel meant for the 14 Corps, which was set up in the aftermath of the 1999 Kargil conflict to streamline the army's operational commitments in the region.