Read on Twitter
Dineshwar Sharma belonged to rare breed of officers who could speak truth to political executive with all the requisite bluntness. His voice carried weight as he had no vested interest except what's good for nation. Here is my tribute to Sharma who we untimely lost today....
Sharma, 1979 batch Kerala cadre IPS officer, had a relationship of comfort with NSA Ajit Doval. Doval was also his cadre -mate and a senior in IB who Sharma regularly went to seek guidance. Sharma's first Kashmir posting came following a refusal by a fellow flamboyant officer...
It was early 90s. Very tough days for Indian security establishment. When Sharma was given option of serving in Srinagar..his first stop was the office of his senior in IB....Ajit Doval...then a joint director.....who told him his decision to go to Srinagar was right move...
Sharma took his family along.....not a wise move given the security scene in Srinagar those days. But he was fully committed to posting and hence decided to take family along. He once told me...once security guards posted at his residence in Srinagar opened fire in air.....
Due to bit of misunderstanding and family thought the house was under attack...his wife was hesitant in sending him out but Sharma none the less went out and sorted the whole thing. He went on to serve for full two years there....
He and fellow batchmates of 1979 were very close....Rajendra Kumar, DP Sinha, Sharad Kumar, DK Pathak....Alok Verma...Anil Sinha......when Rajendra Kumar was facing trouble in Ishrat encounter case, Sharma was all help but he provided real help to those subordinate IB officers...
Who charged along with Kumar in the Ishrat case...he went and told CBI chief...even if we take CBI's theory on face value that Ishrat encounter wasn't a genuine operation....the subordinate officers should not be charged in the case as they were merely following orders.....
Thinking they were part of a legitimate operation....it's another matter CBI still went ahead and charged all of them but the government later decided not sanction the charges and case collapsed...but Sharma had the courage to standup for subordinate officers....
As IB chief he was once in a meeting with a CM of a troubled state along with then Home minister Rajnath Singh...the CM objected to presence of security forces in a bit heated voice...Sharma in a deliberate and firm tone told the CM....it's another matter whether....
The CM remains in state or not but all troops will remain in the state...."Paramilitary bhi rahegi....military bhi rahegi....IB bhi rahegi....police bhi rahegi...aap rahe ya na rahe..." Sharma told the CM...ever the cool mind...Rajnath Singh pacified Sharma.....
But the blunt message had been passed to the CM....and interestingly Sharma's relationship with the CM continued to remain on strong footing as he never made the message personal...it was in the interst of nation....
During Sharma's tenure as IB chief around 3000 personnel of IB were promoted...these promotions had been stalled for different reasons...(I wrote for HT almost exact number of officers promoted in a short span of time....when I met him after the story...Sharma chuckled.....)
And said....my officers tell me information is getting leaked from IB...exact number of promotions were mentioned in HT report....Sharma didn't say anything as unbeknownst to them....the chief himself was the source of exact number....
He never held grudges.....a senior reporter once met him to talk to him about Kashmir with the promise not to publish anything under his name....she didn't adhere to promise....and quoted him in her story...he was exasperated with her....and few months later she again.....
Tricked him to meet her....and again quoted him....he was very unhappy with her behaviour...I told him meeting her second time was his mistake (yes...he had allowed me to say this to him)...he said...I stopped picking her phone....or lied to her he wasn't in town.....
But, he added..... I am not good at lying....So finally called her... again to be tricked! Sharma had invested so much in ceasefire in Kashmir....when govt decided not to continue with it after a month....it was the end of diplomacy for Kashmir....Sharma kept quite.....
But obviously he wasn't happy....he thought...the ceasefire was not allowed enough time to give results on ground and there were enough indications that in the longer run ceasefire would have helped in breaking cycle of violence in the valley......
He knew a dead militant gives birth to more militants...he wanted to stop the cycle of killings and thus chocking the flow of young Kashmiris to jihadists...that was the way to bring youth of Kashmir back to mainstream....he would say...we need to win them over.....
But govt had decided to junk only the ceasefire but also the PDP-BJP alliance...Sharma basically didn't have much to do after that in Kashmir....but his heart was still there....he loved Kashmir...may be Kashmiris didn't realise....
Sharma was one of their best bet to end cycle of violence in the valley......before 370 was scrapped...Sharma was posted to Lakshadweep....once....from there he said.... jokingly....."aap logo ne itni door bhej diya hai." I told him I will come to meet him there....
But lockdown didn't make things easy for any of us....just a fortnight back, common friend told me Sharmaji wasn't well....his old cough has become bad...he wasn't able to speak...but I never thought we would lose him...it was too early to go Dineshwar Sir....
