Lack of objectivity

Sir, - The recent shootout in the Red Fort may have achieved the aim of sensationalising the cause of the terrorists, but it is unfair to project the army garrison at Red Fort in such poor light.

Two issues come out clearly after reading various stories in the media, both the print and the electronic. One is that the press is quite ignorant in its knowledge about the security at the Red Fort and the second, the police tried to make it appear that the army was to be blamed for the entire incident. Tragically, even the Prime Minister has passed his judgment even before all the facts have been brought to light.

The Red Fort is not Fort Knox and nor is it meant to be. It houses an infantry battalion, which is located in New Delhi to provide ceremonial guard duty at Rashtrapati Bhavan and Guard of Honour to any visiting foreign dignitary. While normally two companies are located in the Red Fort, the remainder two companies are in Rashtrapati Bhavan. There is no space to house the entire battalion in Rashtrapati Bhavan and hence part of this battalion is housed in the Red Fort. After taking into account leave and other duties and men on training courses, etc, it is unlikely to have strength of over 200 men at any one time. The Military Police detachment is not meant to provide security cover at all and in any case, its strength is minuscule.

Is this strength sufficient to guard the Red Fort which has thousands of people visiting it and which has bazaars inside and outside and regular Sound and Light programme performed inside? The answer is no. There are eight different agencies working inside the Red Fort and controlling their respective real estate. Army is also one of them and the security was not to be handled by the army for the entire Red Fort, as the press is trying to make out.

Troops inside the the Red Fort are not armed 24 hours of the day as is the case in Kashmir. They have been stationed there as part of their peace tenure and the battalion which normally acquits itself well in insurgency prone areas is given the honour of being located in the Red Fort. Therefore, routine security is what one should expect and not the heightened security arrangements, with soldiers armed to their teeth, as is being suggested by the press and the police now. After the kind of write-up one has come to read after this incident, I very much doubt if any battalion would feel honoured to be located in New Delhi.

Needless to say, in such an environment, given the current peace process in Kashmir and the resistance to it by many of the militant groups, the army inside the Red Fort is indeed a soft target. Of late the army has been the soft target at many places. In fact, this should have been anticipated well in advance and necessary precautions should have been taken by all concerned. That this was not done is indicative of the malaise in our system, where we only react and never are our actions proactive. To blame only the army for this incident is unwarranted and undesirable. While I am not suggesting that nowhere else is the army to be blamed for its lapses, surely the Red Fort incident does not demand the kind of condemnation of the army, which one has had the misfortune to read.

Colonel (Retd.) A. Sridharan,

Coimbatore (TN)

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Sir, - It is a matter of great concern that ISI terrorists sneak into the Red Fort and kill armymen and civilians and escape. We must be fully alert and must see that such terrorist acts do not occur again.

Recently terrorists made a car-bomb attack outside 15 Corps headquaters in Badami Bagh, Srinagar, and killed security men and civilians.

This shows that our security is not alert. If this happens in 15 Corps headquarters, what to talk of any other target. We must make sure that none of the ISI agents enter Badami Bagh cantonment within the radius of one kilometre. Whoever is responsible for the security lapse must be booked immediately.

O. P. Kohli,

New Delhi

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