NEW DELHI: A General Court Martial (GCM) in Delhi today ordered the dismissal of Group Captain Suman Roy Chowdhury, then Chief Operations Officer (COO) of Srinagar Air Force Station, for a missile attack on a friendly Mi-17 helicopter on February 27, 2019, leading to the death of six Air Force personnel and a civilian.
Air Force officials, however, said the findings of the GCM and the sentence were subject to confirmation by the IAF Chief. The incident took place a day after the IAF carried out an airstrike in Balakot, Pakistan, in retaliation to the Pulwama terror attack of February 14, 2019, that left 40 CRPF personnel dead.
Around the same time the same day, Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman (now Group Captain) was engaged in a dogfight with a Pakistan Air Force (PAF) aircraft over Nowshera along the Line of Control. During the duel, he shot down a PAF F-16 jet. His MiG-21 Bison aircraft was also shot down but he ejected and landed in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. He remained in captivity for two days.
On March 20, the Punjab and Haryana High Court had allowed the GCM to pronounce the findings against Group Captain Chowdhury but ordered that these must not be given effect till the disposal of the case before it. The High Court, incidentally, is yet to dispose of the case.
Group Captain Chowdhury had urged the GCM not to proceed with the pronouncement of the sentence till the case was in the High Court. When contacted, his counsel Captain Sandeep Bansal (retd) said, “The Group Captain moved an application on April 5 for not proceeding with the pronouncement of the sentence till the matter was disposed of by the Punjab and Haryana High Court. But on the advice of Judge Advocate, the GCM proceeded ahead. We will challenge it before the High Court.”
Wing Commander Shyam Naithani, who was the Senior Air Traffic Control Officer at the time of the incident, is acquitted of four charges and has got a severe reprimand for one charge. Group Captain Chowdhury is held guilty on five of the nine charges. He is held guilty of not obeying the general order issued by Air Headquarters, dated July 14, 2017, which required all aircraft operating north of latitude 3200 N to operate with Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) on. He permitted Mi-17 to get airborne from Srinagar without the IFF on. He is held guilty of assigning an inbound flying object to the missile unit at 10:10 am on February 27, 2019, at 23 km from the Srinagar base for engagement by the Mission Commander, Command and Control Unit of 2258 Squadron. As a consequence, the assigned flying target, which actually was friendly copter Mi-17, was shot down by a Spyder missile at 10:14 am. The mishap caused a loss of Rs 133.31 crore to the state.
Those who died included pilots Squadron Leader S Vashisht and Squadron Leader Ninand M, Sergeant VK Pandey, Sergeant Vikrant Sahrawat, Corporal Pankaj Kumar, Corporal D Pandey, and Kifayat Hussain Ganie, a civilian on the ground and resident of Budgam district.
He is held guilty of failure to monitor the position of the friendly copter in contravention to the duties of the Terminal Weapon Director (TWD) contained in SOPs.