NEW DELHI, March 29: India’s army chief on Thursday denounced as treason the leaking of a damning letter he wrote describing the army as unfit to fight a war and urged ‘ruthless’ treatment of the culprit.

Army Chief General V.K. Singh told Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the letter that India’s tanks lacked shells to fire, its air defences were out of date and its forces ‘woefully short’ of weapons.

“The leakage of the letter should be treated as high treason... and sources of the leakage should be found and dealt with ruthlessly,” Gen Singh, who is due to retire on May 31, said in a statement.

Defence Minister A.K. Antony also slammed those responsible for leaking the letter, calling it an ‘anti-national’ move that “only helps enemies”.

Mr Antony told a New Delhi defence trade show “we will take strongest action under laws after going into the root of the leak of the army chief’s letter”.

Opposition outcry over the assertions in the letter, splashed across the media on Wednesday, forced Mr Antony to promise parliament the government would do everything “necessary for the security of the nation”.

The general said in his March 12 letter that India’s air defences were “97 per cent obsolete” and its tank fleet was “devoid of critical ammunition to defeat enemy tanks”.

“It was his job to point out the problems, but it was a bit belated – he should have done it two years ago after he was appointed instead of three weeks ago,” said Subhash Agrawal, head of India Focus, a Delhi-based think tank.

The latest uproar has brought to the fore the soured relations between the government and the army chief.

Gen Singh has been at loggerheads with the government ever since he lost a Supreme Court battle earlier in the year in which he sought to extend his retirement by a year, asserting the army’s age records were wrong.

On Monday, Gen Singh asserted in a newspaper interview that he was offered a $2.8 million bribe by a lobbyist to clear a sub-standard trucks purchase deal.

The general insisted he had informed the defence minister but no action was then taken.

On Thursday, Mr Antony refused to comment on reports that the government might ask the general to go on extended leave until his retirement.

“All three service chiefs still enjoy the confidence of the government. They’re still working,” he told reporters.

India is a massive military spender, with Jane’s Defence Weekly forecasting its total purchases between 2011 and 2015 will top $100 billion.

The uproar is the latest blow for Prime Minister Singh’s government, which has been paralysed by a series of graft cases, including the mis-selling of mobile phone licences estimated to have cost the treasury up to $39 billion.

The new scandal broke as leaders of the BRICS group of emerging market nations – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – met in Delhi.

“When the country ought to have put its best foot forward as host of the BRICS summit, we have had instead a comedic show where the army chief tells the world how ill-prepared for war his army is,” wrote Mail Today columnist Manoj Joshi.—AFP