New Delhi: Leaking of official secret of military operations is treason. Those involved must be punished and the prime minister must come clean, Congress leader A K Antony said Wednesday. The former defence minister was referring to the purported WhatsApp chats of Republic TV editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami doing the rounds of social media. AK Antony addressed a joint press conference with party leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad, Sushilkumar Shinde and Salman Khurshid here on this issue. He said those involved in the ‘anti-national act’ deserve no mercy. The government should immediately order an inquiry into information leak about the 2019 air strikes.
“Leaking of official secret is a criminal act. Leaking official secret about military operation, national security matters, sensitive military operations especially military strike is treason, anti-national. They have to be punished for anti-national activities, for treason. They deserve no mercy,” Antony said.
Antony referred to the WhatsApp chats between Goswami and ex-BARC CEO Partho Dasgupta. He said India’s national security has never been compromised in such a way. Never have the high offices of the prime minister, home minister and others been ‘brazenly compromised’ he added.
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“Does the prime minister, home minister, in fact the entire government have any moral, political, constitutional right to continue in office after such damning revelations? We demand that the prime minister should come clean on these accusations immediately. This is needed in order to restore the severely damaged credibility of the highest office of the country,” a joint statement by the leaders said.
Antony said having worked with the military for long as former defence minister, they could never leak information about such operations. “It has to be enquired immediately on war footing as to who that person is for whom the leak happened. Whoever is responsible for the leakage must be punished for treason. Also this journalist who was in possession of sensitive military operations has to be punished. The government must order a proper enquiry. Whoever is responsible, whoever is party to the leakage of this sensitive military operation deserves no mercy,” asserted Antony.
Former Home Minister Shinde said the matter involved the violation of the Official Secrets Act. He informed the matter would be raised in the budget session of Parliament starting January 29. He said the charges must be probed under the Official Secrets Act and added that the Congress would talk to other parties on a JPC probe into the matter.
Azad meanwhile said the probe must bring out whether Goswami was merely bragging about his proximity to the government. If he actually got help, it was a serious matter.
