BSF jawan Tej Bahadur Yadav who complained about the poor quality of food was sacked in April last year BSF jawan Tej Bahadur Yadav who complained about the poor quality of food was sacked in April last year

BSF CONSTABLE Tej Bahadur Yadav, who was sacked last April after he posted video clips on social networking sites purportedly showing poor quality food being served to security forces personnel posted in frontier areas adjoining Pakistan, was probed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) for possible “connection with foreign contacts”.

The NIA looked at Yadav’s social media profiles as well as his call detail records, but did not find anything. The NIA probe report is among the documents submitted by Yadav to the Punjab and Haryana High Court, along with his plea seeking reinstatement which came up for hearing on Tuesday.

According to the records, BSF Director General K K Sharma sought an NIA probe on January 18 last year, a few days after Yadav posted the video clips.

Read | BSF dismisses constable who posted video on ‘bad food’

“But as such no proof is available in communication/ post/ chat that have been seen/ tracked on Facebook as well as Twitter account, which could be harming national interest,” says the probe report. “His phone/ electronic devices data also didn’t revealed any information about his foreign contacts, documents, audio or any incriminating images,” it says.

The NIA report says that while Yadav’s call detail records before January 9, 2017 — a day after he posted the video clips — “didn’t reflect any foreign contacts”, he was, however, “in connection with foreign contacts on and after 10.01 2017, where calling numbers were from countries like UK, Saudi, UAE, Australia and Korea”.

In his plea, Yadav has said the intention behind his complaint “was merely for the cause of jawans serving the nation and to improve the quality and quantity of the food for BSF soldiers” and there was “nothing mala fide”.

On allegations that such videos could “help an enemy country trace their location”, Yadav has said that the NIA “clearly commented that the video could neither have helped trace the location, nor would it have posed a threat to national security.”

Punjab and Haryana High Court Judge P B Bajanthari on Tuesday issued notices to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, BSF Director General and Commandants of 80 and 29 Battalion headquarters in Jammu & Kashmir for their response to Yadav’s petition.

Yadav has alleged that he was illegally detained by the BSF just half-an-hour after his voluntary retirement on January 31 last year, and was dismissed without being issued a showcause notice. He has termed his dismissal as “illegal, unjust, biased, arbitrary, violative of Article 21 of the Constitution of India and against the principle of natural justice”.

“It was quite surprising how such an unfortunate incident happened that the petitioner was despotically detained just after half-an-hour of his retirement… and put into a barrack alone… the door of the barrack was bolted from outside and a guard was enforced outside… Furthermore, at about 1305 hours, Sub-Inspector Raghubir Singh, line officer, came to the petitioner in his barrack where he was illegally detained and forced him to receive the order copy whereby VRS of the petitioner was cancelled on 31.1.2017,” says his petition.

He has said that he shot the video to show it as proof to his senior officers, but he does not know when his “colleagues uploaded the video on my Facebook account on 08.01.2017”.

Yadav, a resident of Rattan Kalan village in Narnaul tehsil of Mahendergarh district in Haryana, joined the BSF in 1996. He was dismissed from service on April 19 last year. The BSF said he was found guilty of committing an act “prejudicial to good order and discipline of the force”, in which he made false allegations and did not adhere to formal grievance redressal mechanism of the force.

He was also found guilty of neglect to obey general orders as he carried two mobile phones while on operational duty and posted photographs in uniform on social media in contravention of instructions.

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