A senior Minister in Omar Abdullah’s Cabinet entered into a scuffle with a youth during a Chief Minister’s address in a poll rally in Watergam village of north Kashmir’s Baramulla district. Mohammad Akbar lone, infamous for his loose talk, was caught on camera forcing him to issue an apology.
Sources said that three unemployed siblings—Muhammad Amin, Firdaus Ahmad and Hilal Ahmad—were in the audience when Omar Abdullah began his poll lecture. To grab attention of the Chief Minister, the siblings stood up and one of them tried to speak loudly while waving his hands.
“listen to me Mr. Omar,” Amin shouted while approaching towards the concertina wire barrier between the audience and the podium. Suspecting disruption, three ruling party leaders including lone descended from the podium to stop the advancing youngsters.
Eyewitnesses said that visibly outraged NC leaders caught hold of Amin and lone allegedly yelled at him, snatched the papers he was waving and tossed them in air.
Sources said that Amin was waving his personal documents and those of his four unemployed siblings. The security personnel also intervened and forced them to quit the venue.
However, the evicted youngsters were followed by the mediapersons evoked a knee-jerk reaction from the Chief Minister. “look at the media. They are always after something which could create sensation,” Abdullah said.
Amin said that he was not acting at any party’s behest but wanted to highlight the plight of his family. “We are five brothers and all are unemployed. We have no affiliation with any political party. Neither do we belong to NC nor PDP but we had arrived here with a hope that the CM would listen to us,” Amin said.
He said that they wanted to open a Mineral Water plant but the red tape created hurdles in their pursuit.
latwr in the evening lone issued an apology for the incident and claimed that Chief Minister also interacted with the aggrieved brothers. “I regret the unfortunate incident. I deeply regret losing my calm and getting into a physical scuffle with the said individual”, lone said in a statement stressing that Chief Minister was unaware of the happenings. “The Chief Minister after listening about the incident sought and met the concerned individual personally and assured him that his personal issue would be looked into through the due process after the end of Parliamentary Elections”, the statement added.
lone has earlier entered into verbal dual with officers and legislators umpteen times. Apparently, due to this reason, he was shifted to cabinet instead of continuing as Speaker of the legislative Assembly.