SRINAGAR:An Army Court of Inquiry (CoI) has indicted Major Leetul Gogoi for ‘fraternising’ with a local woman in a Srinagar hotel and being away from his place of duty in May this year. This paves the way for disciplinary action against the officer, who will now face court martial, the Army sources said. Major Gogoi is the same officer who had in April 2016 hit the headlines after he had ordered his men to tie a Kashmiri shawl-weaver to the bonnet of an Army jeep and allegedly used him as a human shield against the stone-pelters during the by-poll in Srinagar Lok Sabha constituency.
The controversial officer was on May 23 detained briefly by the Srinagar police following a scuffle between him and the staff of a City hotel Grand Mamta when the latter refused to allow him to check in with a teenage girl from Chak-e- Kawoosa village of the Valley’s central district of Budgam. They were being accompanied by a local man Sameer Ahmed Malla who later turned out to be soldier.
The staff at the Srinagar hotel had told the police that the person by the name of Leetul Gogoi who had introduced himself as a businessman from Assam while booking a room on line for two persons for one night had arrived at the reception around 11 am on May 23 along another person and a girl. The second person, it said, was driving the Maruti Alto car in which they had come to the hotel. While mentioning the purpose of his visit and mode of payment, Major Gogoi had said ‘I am travelling for business and I may be using a business credit card’. The staff at the hotel had asked him to show his identity card which he failed to do and instead gave it his driving license. When the front desk staff asked him about the girl he wanted to check in with, neither he nor she could give it a ‘satisfactory answer’.
