M A I N   N E W S

Alert on LeT infiltration into forces
No ultra in ranks, says IAF
Tribune News Service & PTI

New Delhi, July 21
Sounding an alert, National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan has written to the state governments about intelligence inputs that Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba cadres could have infiltrated the armed forces and two of them could have made their way into the Indian Air Force (IAF).

But hours after this alert was made public, the IAF today said it had carried out elaborate vetting process of its personnel and had not found any infiltration.

“We have scanned the system and haven’t found any (infiltration),” IAF spokesman Wg Cdr Mahesh Upasni said when asked whether any LeT cadre has infiltrated the IAF. “Such scans will be repeated,” he said. Defence Ministry sources said the council alert was received in September last year.

The spokesman said while specific intelligence inputs could not be discussed in the public domain, there existed a processing machinery in the service to act whenever such inputs were received.

Meanwhile, the BJP has expressed serious concern over the reports and demanded the government to come out with a clarification.

BJP Spokesman Arun Jaitley said terrorist infiltration into one of the wings of the armed forces was a serious development especially when the country had seen the assassinations of two Prime Ministers, attacks on Parliament, citizens and religious places in the past.

He said infiltration attempt in the armed forces were an attempt to attack the last bastion of the state empowered to protect the nation. “If the NSA alert is correct, it should not just wake up but shake up the government in the light of blasts in Mumbai, New Delhi, Varanasi and Doda in the recent past. The armed forces need to be insulated from such attacks by strengthening intelligence network backed by political diplomatic initiatives and a strong law,” he asserted.