New Delhi: In the ongoing tussle between bureaucracy and the forces over a scuffle between the troops of an Army unit and policemen in Arunachal Pradesh’s Bomdila, it has emerged that the police personnel had violated legal procedures by detaining two soldiers and also beating them up in lockup.

On this issue, an article by Vivek Prasad (Twitter handle @Mallufideintent) is going viral in military circles.

Prasad has questioned the behaviour of the police force as the IPS association had tweeted against the behaviour of the Army personnel in the whole episode.

On medium.com, Prasad wrote, “First of all, it is important to address the fact that if the two soldiers whose detention by the police had started the whole fiasco were guilty of any offence (except certain specified offences under the Indian Penal Code), the police should have immediately handed them over to the military authorities instead of taking them to the police station.”

“Be that as it may, even if they are still found guilty of any wrongful or criminal act, the military authorities would no doubt punish them. This will happen no matter how badly the Police beat them up,” he added.

Extending support to the Commanding Officer (CO) despite his criticism for issuing a threat to the police officials against beating his men, Prasad argued that as CO he was bound to do that.

“What this means is that the Commanding Officer knows that he must stand behind his men in peace, so that they might stand behind him in wars,” he said.

Prasad said that an infantry battalion has been famously stated to be the last 100 metres of foreign policy.

“The soldiers know that when they run into a hail of bullets, the only ones beside them will be their fellow soldiers. There is nobody else anywhere to back them up when the proverbial metal meets the meat. The man leading the charge will be the CO. His every action and command would be higher than the word of god for the soldiers of the battalion,” he said.

Prasad also argued that the military, as a fighting force, cannot be like police as their mandate is to fight wars against the enemies of the nation and they have to be “rough men”.

On the other hand, the police’s job, he argued, is to remain calm as a service to the people.

“A peaceful mahatma may prevent a war, but he is certainly not going to win one. This is why it is all the more reason for other members of society to be sensitive in their official and unofficial dealings with the armed forces,” Prasad argued while urging that better sense should prevail in dealing with the matter from both sides.

Meanwhile, Defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Union minister of state for home, Kiren Rijiju, on Wednesday, took stock of the situation in Bomdila.