Air Force Chief NAK Browne todayrejected as "nonsense" the allegation that IAF crew andpersonnel abandoned an injured policeman in a crippled chopperduring an anti-Naxal operation and said "sniping" at eachother by security agencies should stop.
"The impression that they abandoned, they ran away, Ithink this is all nonsense," he said at a press conferenceduring the Aero India exhibition here. He suggested that theIAF team on the chopper had left the chopper and the injuredpoliceman as they wanted to avoid being taken hostage in thearea infested with Maoists.
Expressing surprise at the leakage of a letter in whichHome Secretary R K Singh had objected to the conduct of AirForce personnel, the IAF chief said, "the lesson that we allhave to draw is that we all to work together as a team in onedirection instead of finding faults in one incident."
He warned that the anti-Naxal operations were going to bea long haul and there were no easy solutions.
"If we keep sniping like this," what had happened inKashmir where forces inimical to the country's interestcreated divisions between security forces and securityagencies could be repeated in the Maoist areas.
"I do not thinkthis is the way to function in a situation like this," hesaid.