Major Nirmal Ajwani (Retd), who is fighting to restore the honour of officers and soldiers in the Samba Spy Scandal, says he will not rest until the ‘fraud committed by the Military Intelligence’ is exposed. Excerpts from an interview with P NaveenI expect nothing but full justice, by reinstating us in Service, in terms of the Delhi HC judgment of December 21, 2000, and punishing the guilty ones, who are alive.My role was that of a judge advocate in court martial trials in HQ Northern Command at Udhampur during 1976-78. My duties were to ensure the proper conduct of trials and render legal advice to the court.I have not dug out any classified document. I started my investigation after losing our case in SC on March 6, 2014. My main aim is to expose the whole fraud to the world and tell people of India how Military Intelligence (MI) officers have continued to mislead the whole world, including Supreme Court. Are we Indians not ashamed of this to protect the guilty by punishing innocents at the cost of national security?Why wasn't the document that the Army presented in Supreme Court not shows to us? Reveal this document to us. And if it proves our guilt, gun me down in the middle of the street. If there is any evidence against me or any other officer, produce it and hang us publicly. But if there is no evidence, hang those who implicated us. Either we are Pak spies or innocent - there is no other point. Why are you shying away from disclosing the evidence?I was implicated in a fake case of spying for not obliging MI officers in proving a non-extant oral confession. It led to my trial on trumped charges, which was dissolved as Captain Rana refused to falsely implicate me before the general court martial (GCM). Rana's driver Mahabir gave a statement that he was tortured to falsely implicate me. All this made it clear to me that the spy case was cooked up to teach me a lesson.After I was released from arrest in February 1980, I learnt that several officers and other personnel from 168 Infantry Brigade had also been arrested on similar charges. Some were punished, based on their own confessions extorted under severe torture . I interacted with V K Kaul, deputy director of Intelligence Bureau (IB), who had interrogated Rathaur and Rana, and declared them not only to be innocent but the whole Samba Case to be a big hoax. That, and my investigation over the years, confirmed my conviction / belief. There are several other factors leading to an indisputable and unchallengeable conclusion that the Samba Spy Case was a big fraud. I hold the evidence in any hands.The involvement of havildars Sarwan Das and Aya Singh was discovered by an IB officer, Mr Chaabra, posted at Jammu. He had kept both these jawans under surveillance for over two years and only on 100% confirmation through documentary evidence from his source, Naqvi, possibly a double agent, he alerted his department to arrest the duo. They were arrested and interrogated in Jammu in May / June 1975.The report of Aya Singh's interrogation was sent to Army HQ for action. Only after reading this report, MI officers came to know that Singh and Das were involved in spying. This revelation must have made MI officers ashamed that they were blissfully ignorant of this development. It resulted in Aya Singh falsely implicating his father-in-law, Capt Nagial, also from Intelligence. Nagial was arrested on September 14, 1975, on the allegation that he went to Pakistan on July 19, 1974. He faced trial in 1976 and was acquitted of the main charge of going to Pakistan, but was convicted on two connected charges without evidence. Thereafter, MI officers began interrogating Aya Singh and Sarwan Das. This yielded no results about the involvement of anyone else. Irked by no success, the interrogators - Captain Sudhir Talwar and Major S C Jolly, under the supervision of Colonel V P Gupta - subjected Sarwan Das and Aya Singh to inhuman third-degree treatment. This resulted in both these spies naming their colleagues from 253 and 225 Medium Regiments in which both had served.In all 10 innocent persons were named by them, who were arrested, tortured and their forced confessions were recorded in 1976 and 1977. They were all tried by GCM and sentenced to 14 years' rigorous imprisonment without any legal evidence. This emboldened MI officers Col Gupta, Major Jolly, Capt Talwar and Col T S Garewal to start a fresh round of false implications. This was the breeding ground for having Rathaur and Rana named by Sarwan Das and Aya Singh, which gave birth to the monstrous, sadistic plan. It was exposed by Das on December 4, 1994, in TOI followed by his explosive notarized confession on December 19, 1994, which laid the foundation for Rathaur and Rana seeking annulment of proceedings under Section 165 of Army Act. The morbid aim of MI was to show to the world that if IB discovered Sarwan Das and Aya Singh as spies, they (MI) were way ahead and created about 60 more innocent spies.In any case, Aya Singh was a mole since after his release from Army on March 18, 1983, he began visiting Pakistan again. He was arrested in 1985 and detained in Jammu Jail where advocate Bhim Singh of Panther Party was engaged as his counsel.He was released on bail and again visited Pakistan. However, he was not lucky this time and on returning to India, was shot dead in 1986. Gunner Sarwan Das, who was released from Army the same day as Singh, did not indulge in spying any more and was very eager to reveal all out of guilt for unnecessarily ruining the lives of over 60 innocent Army personnel at the instance of MI officers.The answer to this lies in what I have just said.I am going to appeal against the SC order. The future course of my legal actions will show where the government stands - whether it will bail out over 60 innocent Kulbhushans or support only one Kulbhushan in International Court of Justice at Hague.All these named in the Samba Case, who are alive, are lending us full support despite their adverse conditions, physical and financial. One thing is clear, we all have lost faith in the honesty and integrity of our ministers as well as the justice delivery system in the country as it stands today.We are surviving only on our faith in ourselves, and that we are totally innocent. We will fight on for full Justice.

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