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A freak case: Army

NEW DELHI: The arrest of a serving officer for his alleged complicity in the Malegaon bomb blasts has hurt the Army’s prestige but this was a “freak” incident, a senior Army officer said here on Thursday.

“The Army’s prestige has been hurt after our officer’s name came up in case. This is a freak incident. We have our own mechanisms for keeping a check on these kinds of things,” the Deputy Chief of the Army Staff, Lt. Gen. S. P. S. Dhillon, told journalists here after a send-off for troops from a Gorkha battalion on a U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo.

Lt. Col. Srikant Purohit was arrested on Wednesday for allegedly supplying money and explosives for the September 29 blast.

From the intelligence cadre of the Army, he was posted at the Army Corps Training College and Centre at Pachmarhi in Madhya Pradesh.

Lt. Gen. Dhillon said the Army would initiate action against the officer after receiving a report from the Maharashtra Police’s Anti-Terrorism Squad.

On the peacekeeping mission in Congo, he said, “Our troops have been doing good work there and will continue to do so.” This despite pressure from rebels. Recently, militants injured an officer and a jawan in rocket firing on their armoured personnel carriers.

India has the largest representation in the U.N. mission in Congo with over 4,500 troops out of 17,000 peacekeepers deployed there.

Corrections and Clarifications

It is the Army Educational Corps Training College and Centre, at Pachmarhi in Madhya Pradesh. A report "[Purohit arrest] A freak case: Army" (November 7, 2008) gave it, incorrectly, as the Army Corps Training College and Centre.

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