By Nagender Ranta
SHIMLA: The Janata Party President Subramanian Swamy on Monday asked the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to nab the core of the powerful sinister Arms lobby of the country instead of arresting some bureaucrats or managers.
Speaking to the media here in the capital town of the state, Swamy showered praises on General V.K. Singh for exposing of this sinister arms lobby, which was involved in wide scale corruption in the defense arms deals.
“This country owes gratitude to former Army chief V.K.Singh for bringing out this defense deals corruption in public domain who was turned out of the army on bogus matter of birth certificate,” said Dr Swamy.
He asked the CBI to first identify the core of this powerful lobby of arms dealers and then it must nab them.
“The CBI should first identify the core of this powerful lobby, which constitutes Lt Colonel Tajinder Singh, Major Hooda and Kartik, the son of Home Minister P Chidambaram Kartik and then nab them. Arresting bureaucrat or manager would not solve the wide scale corruption problem in the defense deals,” Swamy told newsmen during the press conference.
Central UPA government suspended the head of state-owned BEML Ltd. on Monday as part of an investigation into a multi-million dollar defence deal, the scandal to hit weapons procurement in the world's biggest arms buyer.
The scandal involves allegations by India's former army chief that he had been offered a $2.8 million bribe to buy a faulty batch of Tatra trucks for the army.
The ministry of defence said V.R.S. Natarajan, chairman of BEML, an engineering and defence firm, was asked to leave his post for the duration of the inquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
On Saturday, an Indian businessman and his wife were charged after the CBI investigated allegations that government officials were bribed to stop a Swiss subsidiary of Germany's Rheinmetall AG from being blacklisted.
India is the world's largest arms importer.
