Strong action if found guilty: Gen Rawat

Assuring strong action against an Army Major who was recently detained by police, along-with a local woman, in a hotel in Srinagar, the Indian Army chief Gen Bipin Rawat on Friday said the officer would be given exemplary punishment if his involvement is established.

Sources said shortly after Gen Rawat’s announcement, Army ordered a Court of Enquiry against disgraced officer Major Nitin Leetul Gogoi and attached him with 53 Rashtriya Rifles headquarters at Budgam in central Kashmir while the commanding officer was ordered to be transferred out of J&K.

Major Gogoi was briefly detained by police on May 23 morning along-with a local woman and a soldier Mohammad Sameer Malla within the premises of a hotel in Dalgate area of Srinagar after an altercation with the hotel staff. Gogoi, posted in Beerwah pocket of central Kashmir, had booked deluxe room or two persons for overnight stay and introduced himself as businessman from Assam.

He produced his driving license at the front desk to prove his identity. However, the hotel staff disallowed the woman to go inside the booked room referring to a policy that they do not offer rooms to local boys and girls. The denial led to a verbal altercation and the hotel staff sought intervention of police who whisked away the trio.

“If Major Gogoi has done something wrong, then I assure you that he will be punished immediately. And I will give such a punishment which will set an example,” Gen Rawat told reporters when asked about action being taken against Major Gogoi.

He said if any officer, serving on any position, in Indian army acts wrongly and it comes to notice that he has acted wrongly, “There will be stern action against him”.

Major Gogoi’s brief detention caught media attention in the backdrop of his last year’s controversial action against an artisan whom he tied with the bonnet of an army vehicle and paraded for six hours through several villages in central Kashmir. He justified the action to scare away stone pelters during polling day in Srinagar-Budgam parliamentary constituency.

Police have already set up a Special Investigation team (SIT) headed by a Superintendent of Police to inquire the inident revolving around major Gogoi. Reports said that the woman belonging to an impoverished family in narbal pocket of central Kashmir had voluntarily arrived at the hotel. Her mother, however, told reporters that major Gogoi and Malla have visited their residence twice in past three months during the dead of night and at one time she fainted when the duo made entry to their shanty.

Gogoi is likely to face the music in the CoI as the officers involved in counterinsurgency operations in Kashmir are not allowed to move to the civilian areas. His alleged violation of service rules, security

protocols and standard operating procedures would be looked into besides his alleged intimidation of the girl’s family into their tin shanty would be probed.