Srinagar, Oct 16 National Conference president Farooq Abdullah on Friday called for IAS officer Kumar Rajeev Ranjan’s expulsion from Jammu and Kashmir for using abusive language against a female bureaucrat, saying that his behaviour lacked decency.
The three-time chief minister said that if such an incident had happened during his time when Jammu and Kashmir was a state, he would have put the officer back on the plane and sent him away.
“The language he used was completely wrong; he should be reprimanded. This shows that he lacks the decency and conduct an officer ought to possess. Officers are duty-bound to listen to the people, who only want to present their grievances,” Abdullah said.
“But screaming after that, saying ‘get out, get out’ — that is entirely wrong. He should be expelled from Jammu and Kashmir. He is not one of those officers who should be here. If he remains an officer here, he will find the consequences very difficult,” Abdullah said.
He said whether one is an officer or a minister, they exist to serve the people.
“They are here to alleviate people’s difficulties, not to insult or abuse them. His conduct was completely improper. I was deeply pained and ashamed when I saw him on social media today. He has put all civil servants in a spot; they should reprimand him. His behaviour was very unbecoming of an IAS officer,” Abdullah said.
Asked about Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s remarks that had Jammu and Kashmir been a state, the IAS officer would have been attached to the General Administration Department pending an inquiry into his conduct, the National Conference chief said he would have thrown the officer out.
He said such an incident would have been “out of the question” during his tenure, when Jammu and Kashmir was a state.
“(Such incidents would not have occurred). Not at all. Out of the question. He wouldn’t have only been attached, but thrown out. If I were there (in power) when this happened, he would not have remained in this state for more than two minutes. I would have put him right back on the plane and sent him away,” the senior Abdullah said.
A video that surfaced online showed a heated argument between senior IAS officer Kumar Rajeev Ranjan and JKAS officer Beenish Wani over the role of the National Rural Livelihood Mission during a review meeting on Mission YUVA on Thursday.
The JKAS fraternity has condemned the alleged abuse and public humiliation of Wani, the Assistant Director of the District Employment and Counselling Centre in Ganderbal, and demanded an impartial inquiry into the incident.
Farooq Abdullah said the incident indicates what has been happening in Jammu and Kashmir ever since the abrogation of Article 370 and its downgrading into two Union Territories in 2019.
Asked about the ongoing protests in Delhi, he said, “I think they are very good. A new wave is starting against autocracy, against a Hitlerian way of life.”
On the Middle East conflict, he said, “I hope Trump will realise that dialogue, and not war, is the solution. You are not going to win a war; you are only going to kill people, and innocent people die,” he said.
(PTI News)
