Purohit is an aberration, says Army chief

Army Chief General V K Singh said there was no communalism in the service and officers such as Malegaon blast accused Lieutenant Colonel Shrikant Purohit were only an "aberration".

"Lt Col Purohit is an aberration. He was detached from the troops and command authorities for very long. So, somewhere he has gone wrong. Otherwise in the Army, there is no communalism," he said when asked how the force was handling such cases.

The Army chief was talking to reporters on the sidelines of the release of a book Siege of Warwan. The Army has already completed a Court of Inquiry against Purohit, a Military Intelligence officer, after he was arrested by the Maharashtra ATS in connection with the blast in November 2008.

After the probe was over in April last year, the CoI, held under the Lucknow-based

Central Command, recommended Purohit's dismissal from the Army after finding him "blameworthy" on several counts.

An infantry officer, Purohit was shifted to the Military Intelligence wing and was doing a course in Arabic language when his name surfaced in the case. After the case came to light, Army had started reviewing its internal mechanisms and processes to guard against such incidents in future.