Vindicating Pakistan: Top Indian official faces court martial

B K Loshali spilled the beans about the blown up terror boat

ISLAMABAD: A senior officer of India’s Coast Guard, who had contradicted the government's version of events in connection with the interception of a 'Pakistani' boat in January, will face court martial proceedings from September after being indicted by a board of inquiry.

The move comes after a board of inquiry indicted Deputy Inspector General B K Loshali on May 3 after he contradicted the Indian government's version of events that all four crew members of the boat had been killed after they blew it up themselves, following a high speed chase to avoid arrest, The Times of India reported on Saturday.

The board was instituted in February after the coast guard found Loshali's reply to the show cause notice issued to him over remarks, to be "unsatisfactory".  The panel submitted its report to the Coast Guard headquarters in late April after which was then studied at various levels.

On January 1, Indian Coast Guard patrol vessels claimed to have intercepted ‘a suspicious Pakistani boat’ in the Arabian Sea, thwarting what the Indian security establishment said could have been another attempt to unleash a Mumbai-style terror attack.

At the time, Indian officials claimed that four men on board the vessel set it ablaze after an hour-long ‘hot pursuit’ by the Coast Guard. But Loshali later contradicted the official version, saying he had in fact ordered the boat to be blown up.

Pakistan on February 21 said it stood vindicated in the “terror boat drama” staged by India on the first day of 2015.

“Having remained shrouded in mystery since day one, the drama of the so-called terror boat is now unfolding. The latest Indian media reports actually confirmed our findings,” former foreign office spokesperson Tasnim Aslam had told reporters at a weekly media briefing. 

Published in The Express Tribune, August 16^th, 2015.