How I investigated about fake medals available in the market for army personnel to buy

 

It was a fake medal. A high-ranking senior Army official wore it on his uniform.

Not just him — many others also had the same fake medals.

Why would they have to show off a fake medal?

I was curious. I tried to understand. I could not understand it.

What came as a shocker was that it was not an uncommon practice to wear a fake medal and display it. Everyone seemed to know that there were fake medals.

Fake.

How could it possibly be?

An expert on defence affairs, who was from Hyderabad but lived abroad, had a better understanding.

"Even you can get the medals," he told me. That sounded casual. He said it like it was a matter of fact.

This aroused my curiosity even more.

"They are available for a price and can be bought over the counter," he said.

How could various Sena medals that the Army gave to its personnel be available to anyone?

I went to a shop at Trimulgherry in Secunderabad, in the Army area. There are several shops at Lal Bazaar selling Army uniforms and the like. The medals, however, were not on open display anywhere.

I neither looked like an Army person nor sounded like one. My appearance in no way matched what I was about to ask for.

But ask, I did.

"Which one?" the person at the shop asked me.

I did not know which one to ask for. In fact, I did not quite know the entire range of Sena medals.

"Do you want the Operation Vijay medal?" he asked.

That sounded interesting.

I had reported on the Kargil war. I had written about the brave soldiers from Hyderabad and Secunderabad who fought valiantly. I had also written extensively about the martyrs and their families.

July 26, 1999, is observed as "Kargil Vijay Diwas" to mark the success of Operation Vijay, launched to rid Jammu and Kashmir of infiltrators from across the border.

At the shop, the man at the counter was offering me an Army medal that read "Operation Vijay". This, of course, was for a price.

As I mentioned earlier, these were not openly displayed. If one asked for the medals, they were taken from where they had been kept in the shop and sold to the buyer.

No questions asked.

Similarly, there were different types of long-service medals. There was one for 20 years of service. There was another for nine years of service. There was another one called the "Ucchh Tungta Medal" — the High Altitude Medal — for having served in high-altitude areas and for missions undertaken there for a certain period of time.

There were many more.

To substantiate my news report, I collected as much evidence as I could.

My source guided me further. "Do not call them fake medals," he advised.

Then what were they? And what were they to be called?

"They are referred to by a name," he told me. "They are called 'tailor copies'. This is a known term and is also used in Army circles."

The 'tailor copies' looked quite similar to the original medals. They could be identified as non-original only when compared closely with the originals. There were subtle differences.

Then why did military personnel choose to purchase these 'tailor copies'? That was a mystery to me.

"That is because, though they were eligible for the medals and their names had also been announced, the physical medals had not been handed over to them," my source explained.

"Why would they not have been given the medals?" I asked.

The source explained that the minting of the medals had either stopped or was taking a long time. As a result, those eligible for the medals bought them over the counter from shops selling the 'tailor copies'. It had come to such a stage that possessing tailor copies instead of original ones was not looked upon as improper by anyone. This is what many did. When they had to wait too long to get the original medals, the 'tailor copies' came in handy.

I wrote a news report on January 25, 2017. The report was published with the headline: "Army delay in delivering medals forces soldiers to buy replicas."

The news report had its desired effect. It was later announced in Parliament that facilities for the minting of medals would be improved so that the medals could be delivered on time.