Ex-servicemen raise slogans during their agitation for OROP at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on Tuesday. Manas Ranjan Bhui
Ajay Banerjee
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, August 18
Ex-servicemen’s demands
The ongoing row over the “one rank,
one pension” (OROP) has depended. A meeting between a key aide of Prime
Minister Narendra Modi and a group of agitating retired soldiers of the Indian
armed forces today remained inconclusive and failed to end the 63-day-old
agitation at Jantar Mantar here.
Maj Gen Satbir Singh (retd), who
represented veterans at the meeting with Nripendra Misra Principal Secretary to
Prime Minister (PSPM), said, “We have made it clear that the protest cannot end
till the government makes three categorical announcements.”
He said for the protest to be called
off, the government must announce that the OROP would be sanctioned without
dilution of the recommendations made by the Bhagat Singh Koshyari committee;
the OROP would be given from April 1, 2014, as per an announcement made in
Parliament in February 2014; and the government must announce a date before
which the OROP sanction letter would be issued.
Koshyari, who headed the Rajya Sabha
Petitions Committee, said in December 2011: “Uniform pension be paid to armed
forces personnel retiring in the same rank with the same length of service,
irrespective of their date of retirement, and any future enhancement in the
rates of pension be automatically passed on to the old pensioners.”
Maj Gen Satbir Singh said the
indefinite fast would end but two protesters—Col Pushpender Singh (retd) from
the Grenadiers regiment and Haviladar Major Singh (retd) of the Sikh Light
Infantry—had not agreed so far. The relay fast and the peaceful sit-in would
continue, he added.
Joint Commissioner of Police Mukesh
Meena visited the Jantar Mantar site today. “What happened on August 14 was due
to some confusion and misunderstanding. It will not be repeated. We are here to
provide them security,” he said.
Speaking on behalf of the Delhi
Police, Meena said, “We respect the Army men. It's because of them we can roam
around freely.”
The Delhi Police’s apology came
after Home Minister Rajnath Singh called up Commissioner of Delhi Police Bhim
Sain Bassi and directed police officials to reach out to the agitators and
soothe frayed tempers.
Yesterday,
10 former Chiefs of the Indian armed forces wrote a letter to Modi seeking
action against the policemen who allegedly manhandled protesting ex-servicemen
at Jantar Mantar on August 14.
