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While Kashmir burns, Farooq Abdullah vacations abroad

A Correspondent in Delhi

Dr Farooq Abdullah, the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, is a man with tremendous responsibility, in charge as he is of one of the world's hot spots. But that does not seem to have affected his happy-go-lucky lifestyle. He had spent, all told, barely a month in the state during 1999. He made three trips abroad to the United States, Europe and the Middle East.

Dr Abdullah is currently in Britain, his second home where he had gone to attend the funeral of his British mother-in-law even though his earlier plans to participate in millennium celebrations there were spoiled due to the hijacking of the Indian Airlines plane.

But the hijacking crisis did not prevent him from joining his close friend and J&K's most powerful authority after the chief minister, Mohammad Youssuf Khan, chairman of the Jammu and Kashmir Bank, for Umrah in Saudi Arabia. Actually his presence was a must in the state at that time.

Dr Abdullah left for London on Monday, when a powerful bomb exploded in the vegetable market killing 17 people including 15 civilians. Scores of others who were wounded are undergoing treatment in various hospitals.

The ground situation in the valley has become more volatile than it was nine years back. Government employees throughout the state are on strike for the past 15 days. More and more departments are joining the strike to press their demands. No one in the state, not even cabinet ministers are sure when Dr Abdullah will return. "We need him to at least begin the negotiations to bring an end to the employees's strike. But we are handicapped in his absence. The people are suffering," says a state minister on condition of anonymity.

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