Army files an FIR: ‘Social media’ jawan Ajmer Singh goes missing

Hours after his wife filed a complaint with Clement Town Police Station at Dehradun on April 21 apprehending threat to the life of her husband, the Army is learnt to have filed an FIR at the same police station stating that Naik Ajmer Singh was missing from duty – ‘unauthorisedly absent from duty since April 21’.

Sweety Agarwal, the Dehradun SSP, told National Herald over the phone that the army unit had moved to an undisclosed location in Punjab or Rajasthan and police had not been able to contact anyone from the unit since Friday, not even with Captain Kumar Vivek, who lodged the FIR on behalf of the Army.

Curiously, the Army jawan and his wife lived in Army’s family quarters at Dehradun. In her complaint the jawan’s wife had claimed that her husband had been transferred to another Regiment even as Naik Ajmer Singh was facing a court of inquiry in the Regiment stationed at Dehradun itself. She had named a Colonel and two other officers of the unit who, she said, was harassing her husband.

While the SSP refused to provide contact information of the Jawan’s wife, the number secured from other sources remained switched off on Monday.

The jawan’s troubles started in January this year when he uploaded a YouTube video on the Republic Day to express solidarity with the then suspended BSF jawan Tej Bahadur Yadav. In a long and sarcastic diatribe, Naik Ajmer Singh was heard ridiculing the Army chief’s warning that jawans should take recourse to the grievance redressal system and the ‘proper, specified channels’ to air their problems.

The agitated jawan complained that between the army chief threatening jawans with punishment if they aired their grievances and the Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju describing these issues as ‘inconsequential’, it was impossible to expect justice from the Army hierarchy.

Pointing out that jawans were risking their jobs, pension, life and livelihood while airing grievances on the social media, he bitterly complained that the issues were brushed under the carpet under the pretext of national security.

The somewhat indiscreet video shows the jawan accuse officers of spending their time following trends in the stock market and exploring other investment opportunities.