ET Plus Report
srinagar, Mar 14: A miffed Chief Minister Omar Abdullah rushed to the Srinagar airport and quickly laid a wreath just before the bodies of five Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) men killed in Wednesday's Srinagar terror ambush were flown out. Omar made his appearance after news channels beamed the bytes of angry jawans questioning his absence at a ceremonial tribute giving ceremony to martyrs earlier in the day.
Not just the Chief Minister, no politician was present at the ceremony that CRPF had organised to honour its martyred men. The faces of most jawans were inscrutable when the bodies of their colleagues were brought out draped in the Tri-colour. They were inscrutable when they paid ceremonial tribute. But the rage was apparent when they asked if the Chief Minister cared only about civilian deaths. "Where is the Chief Minister? We risk our lives to protect our country. At least the Chief Minister should have been present at today's ceremony," a jawan said.
His colleague, equally distraught, said it was an unequal battle on Wednesday as a CRPF camp was attacked by the two terrorists loaded with arms and explosives. The CRPF men, they said, had just lathis. "They deploy us without arms, we lost five men yesterday as they were unable to defend themselves," he said. This soldier said he felt "orphaned" by the CM staying away from today's ceremony. "The Chief Minister visits families of civilians when they die in street clashes," he said, adding, "Nobody cares about our life."
Last week, Abdullah broke down in grief in the State Assembly while making a statement on the death of a protester in Baramulla allegedly in Army firing.
The BJP has accused the Government of not being "concerned about jawans dying." In Jammu, workers of the BJP and Panther's Party attempted to surround the State Assembly in protest against the death of the five jawans. They raised slogans and pushed against the police, which used canes to disperse them.
In New Delhi, Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde too was criticised by the opposition for not being in the Lok Sabha when the House honoured the memory of the five soldiers killed yesterday. The BJP also wanted an explanation in Parliament on reports that there were intelligence inputs about the attack. "Why were the jawans not saved despite that?," asked Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj.
On Wednesday morning, the two militants, carrying what looked like cricket bags, entered the CRPF camp and walked onto a large open field where off-duty officers and children were playing a cricket match. They opened fire without cover and lobbed grenades at the CRPF men. Five jawans were killed, and eight jawans and four civilians were injured in the fidayeen attack, the first in Srinagar during the last three years. |
