Army monitoring recruitment
From Girja Shankar Kaura
Tribune News Service

NEW DELHI, Aug 26 — The Army is closely scrutinising recruitment and movement of troops, specially those hailing from the border areas, while they are on leave, in a bid to check infiltration by the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI).

Sources here disclosed that the ISI had over the years been attempting to infiltrate the Indian Army by its own men, but had not been successful due to the vigil being kept on not only the recruitment but also the movement of troops while they were on leave. Special attention was being paid in the North-East, Jammu and Kashmir and even in Punjab due to past attempts.

The issue of the ISI trying to infiltrate the Indian Army has again come into sharp focus due to reports that attempts had again been made, this time in the North-East. Brig D.S. Dhillon, Deputy Director General (Recruitment) for the North-East, was quoted as saying that a concerted and organised effort was on by the ISI to infiltrate immigrants in the Army as jawans. This he said had been evident from the recent recruitment drive held in the region.

He was also quoted as saying that there were even touts, with close connections with ISI agents, who had been providing fake and forged certificates to facilitate their recruitment. The Army had already filed two FIRs in this regard in the Jorhat and Stagaon police stations.

Sources said this was not the first time that the ISI had attempted to infiltrate the Army. Similar attempts had previously also been made in Punjab at the height of militancy in the state, in Jammu and Kashmir till very recently and now the region being targeted was the north-eastern states.

Besides trying to push militants trained in Pakistan through the borders, the ISI was now wanting to push its own men into the Army with the basic motive of creating trouble in the forces and also cutting the very roots of the country.

Sources said help was also being sought from the CID to check on the background of the recruits to remove any iota of doubt.

Sources disclosed that besides the care being taken in recruitment, the Army now was also adopting a method of keeping a tab on the movement of troops from the border regions while they were on leave to ensure that they were in no way lured by the subversive groups. For this special reports were being prepared on their movements and any troop found with suspicious movements was questioned extensively.

Firstly some troops on leave from the border regions were picked at random when they rejoined duty and questioned by superiors regarding their movements during their time off from the Army. Following this questioning a thorough report was made and sent to the local headquarters for further checking and verification. This report, sources said, was sent both on arrival as well as on the departure of troop from the unit.

According to reports the Army had initially unearthed such attempts by the ISI in Punjab some years ago. The attempts had then been made through the BRO, Jalandhar, and later such cases were also discovered in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. In the latter, the attempts had been made to infiltrate through the Jammu BRO, following which there was extra vigil kept during the recruitment.