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| High cost of Delhi's top brass visit abroad | | | ABID SHAH
EARLY TIMES REPORT
NEW DELHI, June 28: The recent wave of violent protests has somehow hit the Kashmir Valley at a time when most of the higher ups in Delhi have been away from the Capital for one reason or the other. Among them the Union Home Minister P Chidambaram has just returned from his visit to Pakistan amid SOS for help and intervention from Chief Minister Omar Abdullah.
Given large scale protests the authorities at Delhi have to quickly formulate a response and this is expected to be possible only after the situation is reviewed at the Prime Minister's level on his return from Canada where he has been attending G-20 summit.
Another top level is that of the Congress president and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi who has been to Himachal Pradesh today to open work on Rohtang tunnel being built by Border Road Organisation under Army.
Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee who virtually heads the Cabinet when Prime Minister is on a visit abroad has been caught amid Opposition attack in the wake of recent decontrol of petroleum prices.
Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, who has earlier been J&K Chief Minister and thus an old hand in the vexed politics of the State, has been away to United States on an official visit.
Often large entourages of officials is accompanying these dignitaries on their visits, leaving Delhi without responsible experts to look for vis-à-vis the crisis that has been dogging the Valley since past few days. And amid such absence of the bulk of political leadership it was Director General Central Reserve Police Vikram Srivastava who faced the media to answer points made by the J&K Government against his men.
Srivastava said that none from CRPF opened fire today during the funeral procession of Bilal Ahmed Wani who died during yesterday's protests in Soepore. He said that an inquiry has been ordered into the incidents while controlling them along with the J&K Police and the truth would be borne out by the probe.
Obviously, the protests may not ebb with paramilitary forces assertions alone to dispel doubts about their role in quelling mob frenzy being expressed by State's Cabinet Ministers. And a considered response from Union Government has, indeed so far, been missing. This has been mainly because of recent or yet to be concluded visits abroad by Central Government higher ups.
And the deepening crisis could not have come at a worse time than this since this has been the time of School Board examinations in the State and also just two days before the commencement of famed Amarnath pilgrimage. With the Government throwing up its hands at Srinagar amid all this, indications are that Army may be out to control the mobs in case the crisis is not blown over soon since it had begun with the shooting an Army Colonel Neeraj Sood dead in a fight against militants last week around the time of the commencement of Chidambaram's Islamabad visit.
Significantly, when the CRPF DG spoke today to the media he pointed out that the armed personnel of the the paramilitary force were there because the Government wanted them to assist the local police and not out of their own choice. He said that the CRPF personnel have been doing their job efficiently while observing utmost restraint. |
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