New Delhi, May 7: The defence ministry and the army today separately admitted that a battalion had faked encounters at the Siachen Glacier and claimed to have killed Pakistani soldiers. The two statements gave different versions of events but both said action was being taken against a major and a colonel.

The fake encounters took place between July and November last year. At least 46 killings are reported to have taken place during this period. Since November 25 and the ceasefire with Pakistan along the Line of Control and the Actual Ground Position Line, no instance of firing at Siachen has been reported officially.

“Based on certain complaints on December 27, 2003, that enemy killings have been fabricated by one unit in Central Glacier in Siachen, a court of inquiry was ordered. The court of inquiry blamed Major Surinder Singh for having faked killings of some enemy personnel and destruction of enemy bunkers,” the defence ministry statement said.

The statement was issued in the wake of a newspaper exposé that claimed that the 5/5 Gorkha Rifles battalion commander, Colonel K.D. Singh, had instructed his junior officers to fake encounters and claim gallantry awards.

Major Surinder Singh had complained and even submitted to the court of inquiry details of fake encounters he had carried out, including one in which a serving soldier of the same 5/5 Gorkha Rifles was being passed off as a dead Pakistani soldier.

The incident was recorded on video camera and the footage was used to make a claim for an award. Later, the same footage was used by the commander of the Leh-based 14 Corps, Lt General Arvind Sharma, to illustrate the kind of action that takes place on the Siachen Glacier, the world’s highest battlefield where Indian and Pakistani troops are eyeball-to-eyeball.

Now, the court of inquiry, the major’s allegations and the separate admissions by the army and the defence ministry make claims for gallantry awards suspect.

Claims for gallantry are made after accounts are presented by army units from action situations that are usually far away from public glare. The army claims it has its own ways of verifying such reports.