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| | 4 days on, government clueless about cause of fire; speculations on rise | | | SRINAGAR, Jun 28: Four days after the mysterious fire destroyed the shrine of Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jeelani (RA) the state government is yet to come up with any authoritative statement about the causes of fire, giving room to rumors and speculations.
Surprisingly, the enquiry committee under the divisional commissioner has not displayed any urgency in probing the incident while police has started independent investigations.
The incident took pace on Monday morning following which the minister for law and parliamentary affairs, Ali Muhammad Sagar, stated that the committee constituted under the divisional commissioner “will ascertain causes of fire as soon as possible.”
However, if the sources are to be believed the divisional commissioner has only once visited the damaged shrine, and there has not been a word from him about the progress of the investigation into the sensitive issue. In fact, the divisional commissioner has been apparently evading the press.
When this newspaper tried to contact him yesterday, he avoided conversation saying “I am in a meeting.”
And ever since, the desperate attempts to contact him could not yield results.
The police, however, has started to investigate the fire incident, but it too is tight lipped abut the causes of fire.
When the Senior Superintendent of Police, Ashiq Bukhari, was contacted he said, “We are investigating the case, but so far we have not been able to ascertain the causes of fire.”
The delay in the investigation is giving room to speculations among the people and in political and religious quarters. The separatists have already cast doubt on and rejected the government probe while the grand Mufti of Kashmir, Mufti Basher-ud-Din, has accused the state of “destroying and distorting the vital evidence.”
“On Monday the government promised that the cause of fire will be ascertained soon, but there has not been a word about it since then. It is making us everyone believe that there is something fishy,” Mir Habibullah of Sonwar shared with Kashmir Times.
The general perception that the government calls probes to mislead people and cool tempers is making the matters worse.
“Previously, we have seen the government call probes to consume time and control the situation. Nothing fruitful has come out of any probe in the past. This (the probe into the destruction of Shrine) could very well be a repeat of that,” a resident of Batmaloo, wishing anonymity, said.
When the minister for law and parliamentary affairs, who is also the MLA Khanyar, was contacted, he said the government was busy with “other things”, and that the causes would be ascertained shortly.
“We have been looking into all other things…but the committee (under divisional commissioner has been at it and the cause of fire will be before people as soon as possible,” he said. |
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