The provincial head of an Engineering Department quit his post on Thursday after a senior Minister in Omar Abdullah’s Cabinet allegedly abused him in a review meeting chaired by another Minister in his office chambers. The Minister has denied the allegations and charged the officer of shielding his subordinate engineers allegedly involved in embezzlement of funds meant for construction of a water supply scheme.
Sources said that Chief Engineer of Kashmir’s Public Health Engineering Department Muzaffar lankar quit his post following an altercation with Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution Minister Chaudhary Muhammad Ramzan at the Civil Secretariat here.
Ramzan, who is senior leader of ruling National Conference representing Handwara constituency in north Kashmir, and lankar attended the meeting to review development progress in Handwara. The meeting was held in the office chambers of PHE Minister Sham lal Sharma.
The meeting took an ugly turn when Ramzan entered into verbal dual with lankar. While, lankar says that the Minister abused him over his refusal to transfer various engineers, the Minister said that the Chief Engineer was irked when he highlighted the issue of embezzlement of Rs5.84 crore in a water supply scheme.“The language that Ramzan used was not tolerable. I subsequently left the meeting hall”, lankar said.“In view of grave provocative language used by CAPD Minister during the meeting I submit my resignation from the post of Chief Engineer and you are requested to make alternate arrangement for running the department”, he said in his resignation letter to PHE Commissioner.
lest the incident brought negative publicity to the ruling party, the Minister hurriedly convened a Press conference later in the evening to explain that he did not abuse or slap the senior officer in the meeting.“Neither did I abuse him (lankar) nor did I slap him. I have always respected officers during my political career. I can’t even think of misbehaving with any officer”, he said.
He said that he highlighted the issue of a water supply scheme that he got approved from the Central Government to address water scarcity issue in Ramhal area of his constituency. He said the scheme has been commissioned but the water scarcity problem persists, indicating that the money has been embezzled.This is the second case in which a Minister belonging to the ruling NC was accused by an officer of misbehaviour in an official meeting. Earlier, a senior officer in Kishtwar was slapped by Home Affairs Minister Sajjad Kichloo.