Defence Ministry taking action in gun procurement leak: Antony

NEW DELHI - Defence Minister A K Antony has said that his ministry is taking proper corrective and preventive action in the recent leak of a top classified report on procurement of guns from the USA and a high level inquiry has been ordered to probe into the matter.

Talking to reporters on the sidelines of a function here on Tuesday, Antony said: “His Ministry is taking all the required steps to investigate this leak of a to secret file on the field evaluation trials report of the Ultra Light Howitzer (ULH) guns that were being procured from the United States.

He further stated that procurement of arms and ammunition are now being done under a strict vigil of the ministry.

“Whenever there is a any kind of leak or any mistake, we are taking care of it. The procurement process of the MMRCA (Medium Multi Role Combat Aircraft) has again been started after going through all the reports and after every body certified that we can proceed now,” said Antony.

He assured that the Army has also launched a high level probe into the matter.

Antony also said that utmost care is being taken to ensure that nothing goes wrong in the procurement of the arms for the various arms of the defence forces.

However, reports claim that some pages of the secret document were sent to the Army headquarters with the suggestion that the deal, being processed under the foreign military sales, government-to-government route, be cancelled.

In January last year, the U.S. Department of Defence notified the U.S. Congress about the possible sale of 145 M777 155mm 39 calibre towed gun worth approximately 647 million dollars. The gun was to be supplied by the BAE systems.

Trials were held by the Army in the hilly terrains of Sikkim and Jammu and Kashmir. The guns, each weighing some 4,200 kg, can be transported over the mountains slung under helicopters. The government had paid for bringing the gun for trials. (ANI)