Team News Riveting
Srinagar, January 27
Congress party on Friday charged that serious lapse was committed in providing security cover to the Bharat Jodo Yatra (BJY) led by Rahul Gandhi forcing the organisers to postpone the march for a day.
The yatra today entered Kashmir from Banihal of Jammu region, crossing the Jawahar tunnel in Qazigund in a bulletproof vehicle. The National Conference leader and former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah joined Gandhi for the walk in the valley. Both leaders were dressed in white T-shirts in the 7 degrees Celsius chill.
They had walked for about three kilometres in the morning and drove through the 2.85 km Jawahar tunnel. After crossing the tunnel, party leaders accompanying Gandhi found there were no policeman to provide security at the scheduled halt. The Congress leader was asked by his security team to stop given the absence of police personnel to manage the large crowd that had gathered to receive him.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday said he had to cancel the Yatra for the day because police arrangements by the Jammu and Kashmir administration “collapsed”. Police personnel who were supposed to manage the crowd were nowhere to be seen,” the former Congress president said. He was supposed to walk 11 km to Vessu before halting for the night at the Khanabal dak bungalow in Anantnag district.
“It’s the Jammu and Kashmir administration’s responsibility to provide security… I hope security will now be ensured for remaining days of the yatra. I don’t know why it happened but tomorrow and day after tomorrow it should not happen,” Gandhi said.
Congress General Secretary Jairam Ramesh termed it a “big security lapse” and said Gandhi’s security team is holding discussions with the Jammu and Kashmir administration to ensure that everything goes off smoothly for the next few days. “Politics has its place but by playing with Rahul Gandhi’s security in Jammu and Kashmir, the government has stooped to its lowest level,” he added in a tweet in Hindi.
Jammu and Kashmir police on Friday categorically rejected charges of security lapse in the Kashmir Valley today as part of the last leg of BJY. Kashmir Zone Police, in a series of tweets, said that only authorised persons as identified by organisers and frisked crowd was allowed inside towards the route of Yatra. “Organisers and managers of BJY did not intimate about large gathering from Banihal joining the Yatra, which thronged near the starting point,” the police said.
The officials said 15 companies of CAPFs and 10 companies of JKP, comprising of ROPs and QRTs, route domination, lateral deployment and SFs were deployed. “JKP was not consulted before taking any decision on discontinuation of Yatra after conducting 1 km yatra by organizers. Rest of yatra continued peacefully. There was no security lapse at all. We will provide fool proof security,” the police said.
