Sitaram Yechury after Srinagar visit: Heard painful stories from people in flight

CPI (M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, who was a member of the Opposition delegation, which visited Jammu and Kashmir on Saturday, said that he heard painful stories from people travelling along with him.

A delegation of Opposition leaders had gone to Srinagar on Saturday to see the ground situation in the region. However, they were not allowed to step out of Srinagar airport and were sent back an hour after landing in the city.

"If everything is fine there, then why they stopped us? First when we went there on August 9, then we were stopped. Now 12 people from 10 political parties went there on invitation from the Governor. After going there, we were in a way detained at the airport," Yechury told ANI here.

"As per the law, we should be given the order, but that was not given. The workers there said our jobs are in danger, we will read it out to you. Then they read it and we gave a reply in writing to them. But we didn't get any reply from them. In flight, we heard painful stories from people. There were many youngsters, who said we are studying outside Kashmir. They said they had gone there just to know whether their parents are alive or not. People are not getting medicine on time... The situation there needs to change and it is not being looked after," he added.

On Saturday, the delegation of opposition leaders alleged that they were detained at the airport in Srinagar in an 'unconstitutional' and 'undemocratic' manner.

Meanwhile, talking about former Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who passed away at the age of 66 on Saturday, Yechury said, "It's very sad indeed that he had to leave us very prematurely. We were born in the same year. When I was retiring from the Rajya Sabha, Arun had said, 'Sitaram and I have grown up together'.

He added, "He was president of the Delhi University Students Union. I was president of the JNU Students Union... We used to have very good discussions despite the ideological political differences. Arun contributed to raising the bar of discussions in the Parliament. Unfortunately, today I don't see anybody of that calibre in the BJP. My deepest condolences to his wife and his children. He left us much too early.

-ANI