Colonel Munindra Nath Rai's January 29 funeral, conducted with full military honours inside the Delhi cantonment, spared this gallantry medal winner's family an awful sight-of seeing his coffin being given a guard of honour in a shabby, nondescript car park near the Delhi airport.

This is because a small 'Shradhanjali Sthal', a reception area constructed by the army to receive the coffins of their deceased soldiers, has been declared out of bounds by the Bureau of Civil Aviation and Security (BCAS). The BCAS has cited regulations for its objections.

So for nearly seven months now, the army has made the best of an awful deal. Soldiers have descended on a derelict spot of the car park of the cargo complex of Delhi airport's Terminal 2. The area is marked by a row of abandoned garages, heaps of uncleared construction material, broken roofing and discarded liquor bottles. The spot is covered in military-style camouflage cloth and red carpets. Tables are laid out with starched white sheets to receive the body of a soldier from the Northern Command, who like Colonel Rai, would have been killed by militants. The call of bugles, the slap of rifles being lifted to salute the coffins and the crunch of boots resound in the brief, solemn ceremony. Wreaths are placed on behalf of the army chief, the Western Army commander and the general officer commanding, Delhi area. The casket is then escorted back inside the air cargo complex from where it is flown out to the soldier's family. This is how the army has received the bodies of at least 26 battle casualties over the past few months.

The Shradhanjali Sthal for army martyrs. The Shradhanjali Sthal for army martyrs.

Objections from the BCAS, the Civil Aviation ministry department responsible for aviation security, have ensured that the reception area built for Rs 32 lakh on a 625-sq-m plot remains locked and unused since its completion in August 2014. The small memorial features five white coffin table plinths covered by a concrete canopy and set against a black granite wall, a lawn and two waiting rooms.

The airport ceremony and the memorial spot have its origins in the patriotic fervour that surrounded the Kargil War of 1999 in which over 500 Indian soldiers were killed. It was on the orders of then civil aviation minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy that the construction of a memorial spot near the Air India cargo terminal was started.

However, this small reception area was abandoned when Air India shifted its cargo operations to the then newly built complex at Terminal 2 in November 2010. The ceremonies continued to take place outside the airport even as the army approached the authorities for a new location to receive the coffins. It was then that a spot was identified within the airport complex, adjacent to a century-old Sufi shrine on a 2,000-sq-m plot.

An army guard of honour in progress. An army guard of honour in progress.

On October 26, 2012 the army signed an agreement to lease the land for 15 years from Delhi Indira Gandhi International Airport (DIAL), the private sector consortium that runs and maintains the airport. DIAL chose to lease a small plot of land to the army for a nominal rent of Re 1 for 15 years.

Since the completion of the facility last year, army officials have engaged in a bitter war of missives with the BCAS, which controls civil aviation security and regulates the entry of all personnel into airport premises.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar MP, Rajya Sabha Rajeev Chandrasekhar MP, Rajya Sabha

The BCAS has also questioned the Army's agreement with DIAL. When contacted for details, DIAL and BCAS officials declined comment. A spokesperson for the Ministry of Civil Aviation also did not return calls from India Today. Airport sources, however, say that aviation security rules prohibit ceremonies near the 'airside' of an airport, the area directly involved in the arrival and departure of aircraft. "These ceremonies began during the Kargil War, nobody opposed it then because patriotic sentiment ran high," says an official. "It's tragic that two arms of the government are fighting."

What has rankled the army so long is the fact that they haven't been allowed to use their facility even as more than 500 visitors throng the Sufi shrine it shares a boundary wall with daily. Pilgrims who frequent the graves of two Sufi saints- Roshan Khan Baba and Kaley Khan Baba are frisked by the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) before being allowed to pass through a metal detector and board special buses under armed escort to reach the spot located less than 50m from the rumble of taxiing aircraft. In Delhi, it is the closest a civilian can get to an aircraft without buying an air ticket. Moreover, most pilgrims carry flowers in plastic bags and take back food offerings in paper plates. Some consume it on the spot and discard the remains in overflowing garbage bins at the site that add to the litter.

Extremely distraught at the BCAS's bureaucratic firewall, the army suggested its honour guards and pallbearers be extended facilities offered to the pilgrims. On August 29 last year, they asked the BCAS to screen and permit 30 soldiers into the airport premises. The army even agreed to deposit 12 rifles without firing pins-a procedure that renders the weapon inert- in the custody of the CISF during the ceremony. But the suggestions proved fruitless. In letter number CAS-7(15)3/2008 Div-I dated September 9, 2014, a BCAS official responded with a terse two-line message: "Regulations do not permit the proposed ceremony and guard of honour at the airport premises."

The parking lot, where the army receives its dead, lies in ruins. The parking lot, where the army receives its dead, lies in ruins.

Former director general of civil aviation Kanu Gohain says the controversy is needless. "The BCAS is the regulator of civil aviation security but surely in the name of security they shouldn't deprive armed forces officials the right to pay their respects to their comrades." If the stalemate continues, Gohain advises all parties- the army, airport authorities and the BCAS-to meet and decide upon a mutually acceptable spot.

"No other profession sheds blood at the nation's behest as the armed forces. That we cannot receive the bodies of these martyrs with honour is unacceptable,'' Rajya Sabha MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar said in a February 10 letter to Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, demanding that the spot be opened up to the army.

Army veterans, meanwhile, cite this as yet another case of the widening gulf between the civilian bureaucracy and the military.

"It is not right, illogical and makes no sense," says Lt-Gen Raj Kadyan, former deputy chief of the army. "Nobody cares more for security than the armed forces." This is a refrain that the army has repeated tirelessly but to no avail.

"We are trusted to guard the country's borders but cannot enter the airport complex to receive our comrades," one bitter army officer says. An irony that seems to have escaped the bureaucracy.

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