Intelligence was passed on to Centre just before Kargil conflict: AS Dulat

Former Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) chief AS Dulat on Saturday said the "intelligence reports pointing to the intrusion of Kargil heights were submitted to the Central government just ahead of the Kargil conflict.'

Participating in a discussion on 'Wisdom of Spies' at the Military Literature Festival here, Dulat said, "The intelligence reports were shared with the Centre with all the pointers gathered by the Army before the war started."

Dulat, who was with the Intelligence Bureau at the time of the Kargil conflict, said the vital information was shared with then Union Home Minister LK Advani, who was also holding the charge of Deputy Prime Minister.

Earlier, Lt Gen Kamal Davar highlighted the importance of putting all the three defence wings physically under one unified command, with convergence in decision making ensured. Cautioning against the current trend of NSA being the 'Intelligence Czar' of the country, Davar said it was one thing to have information but totally another to act on all available inputs.

Lt General Sanjeev K Longer, however, differed on the issue of collective unified command and said in a country like India we need different heads who come together to contribute towards a crucial decision.

Earlier sharing their views during an interactive session on 'Valour, History, Politics, and Media' on the second day of Military Literature Festival-2018 here, defence experts were of the opinion that there should no politicisation of the defence forces, which was gradually creeping into the system.

The panelists included Lt Gen (Retd) N S Brar, Lt General (Retd) T S Shergill, UK based Brig. Justin Maciejewski, NDTV channel head Arati Singh, besides Actors Sonu Sood and Gurmeet Chaudhary.

Lt Gen (Retd) T S Shergill that the media should play a pro-active role in boosting the morale of the armed forces to enable them to discharge their duties diligently with a sense of utmost professional commitment to safeguarding the integrity, security, and sovereignty of our country. He cited the 26/11 Mumbai attack, when the media was telecasting real-time, which led the perpetrators to know about the counter insurgency operations.

Lt Gen (Retd) N S Brar underlined the need for general debates in the public domain on matters related to National Security and defence forces. "Thus, the intimate interface was required more frequently between the government and defence forces on issues of higher defence management," he added.