NEW DELHI, Mar 10: The alleged ‘ill treatment’ of army jawans by the higher ups and controversies pertaining to the deaths of few such personnel in recent past figured prominently in the Lok Sabha today even as Defence Minister Manohor Parrikar said a mechanism is being evolved about superiors handling their ‘sahayaks’ (sub-ordinates and helper). K Venugopal of Congress raised controversies pertaining to video clips of jawans alleging ill-treatment by seniors while raising supplementary queries during Question Hour. He also demanded an inquiry into Delhi police giving a wrong information to the family of a personnel about his death. To Minister of State for Defence Subhash Bhamre’s remarks that those are individual views of the jawans in the video clips and not any collective opinion, provoked angry protest from several Opposition members including Gaurav Gogoi and Sushmita Dev (both Congress) and Mohammed Salim and P K Biju (both CPI-M). RSP Member N K Premachandran said the alleged ill-treatment to jawans was a matter of “grave concern”. “From my constituency, one Roy Matthew died under suspicious circumstances,” he alleged. The said personnel had earlier given an interview alleging ill-treatment and then told his family that his life was under threat.
Mr Parrikar intervened to say that the police have registered a case and investigations are on. “Thus, it will not be proper to comment and prejudice anything when investigations are under way,” he said. On various complaints about ‘Sahayak’ system, the Defence Minister said a mechanism was being worked out to address the complaints. “I am sure, we will find a solution,” he said. To a question, Mr Bhamre said “surgical strikes” carried out by Indian armed forces in September 2016 had given a “huge morale booster for the rank and file of the armed forces”. However, he said, no specific assessment of psychological conditions and morale of defence personnel had been carried out post surgical strikes. The assessment of morale of troops and units is an “important command function” and is a continuous process, he added. (AGENCIES)
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