Team News Riveting
Srinagar, November 4
Pakistan advocates for the people of Kashmir but would not allow its airspace to fly over to the Gulf.
The Government of Pakistan has denied use of its airspace to Go First’s Srinagar-Sharjah flight. According to officials, Pakistan’s refusal on Tuesday forced the flight to take a longer route and fly over Gujarat to reach its destination in the UAE.
As expected, former Chief Minister and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) President Mehbooba Mufti did not miss to grill the Narendra Modi government and indirectly backed Pakistan. Literally giving a clean chit to the Pakistan government, she slammed New Delhi and alleged that flagging the flight off was only a “PR extravaganza without any groundwork.”
Mehbooba Mufti tweeted “puzzling that GoI didn’t even bother securing permission from Pakistan to use its airspace for international flights from Srinagar. Only (a) PR extravaganza without any groundwork.”
While backing Pakistan and solely blaming India for the row, Mehbooba failed to notice that the flight had operated without any problem for a few days after its launch on October 23 through the Pakistan airspace. The PDP Chief probably would be dumbstruck to justify her own allegation as Pakistan all of a sudden denied permission on November 2.
Go First, previously known as GoAir, had started direct flights between Srinagar and Sharjah from October 23. The service was inaugurated by Union home minister Amit Shah during his visit to the Valley last month.
Former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir and Vice president National Conference Omar Abdullah took to twitter and termed the development as “unfortunate.”
“Very unfortunate. Pakistan did the same with the Air India Express flight from Srinagar to Dubai in 2009-2010. I had hoped that GoFirst airways being permitted to overfly Pak airspace was indicative of a thaw in relations but alas that wasn’t to be,” former chief minister tweeted on Wednesday.
