Srinagar, May 23, 2023 (PPI-OT): Tough questions from journalists regarding absence of China, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Indonesia, Egypt and other such countries from much-publicized G20 meeting in Srinagar baffled Indian minister Jitendra Singh, who is attached to the Indian Prime Minister’s Office. journalists’ questions on the absence of the above-said nations and the issues related to human rights situation and the lack of political space in the territory prompted the Indian minister to angrily query their “mindset”. Naveed Iqbal, a local journalist who works for The Indian Express, had asked at the evening news conference that if such international events were possible in Kashmir, why not a political process.

“I have been part of the media for quite some time; I think this question is motivated by the mindset which was haunting the earlier friend,” Indian minister Jitendra Singh said. The minister got into an argument with a French journalist who questioned the “very high security” and closure of schools for the meeting, eventually asking him not to frighten the delegates by questioning the security. The three-day meeting of the G20 working committee group on tourism, which started on Monday, was being held in Srinagar to buttress the Modi government’s claims of normality in the Valley. However, the meeting is being organised under the shadow of the gun, with thousands of Indian army and paramilitary personnel deployed along with the elite NSG commandos and the navy’s Marcos.

Many schools were shut in Srinagar and many businessmen complained that the authorities had forced them to stay open. Among those representing the government at the news conference, apart from Singh, were Indian tourism minister G. Kishan Reddy and a battery of bureaucrats including G20 Sherpa Amitabh Kant and G20 chief coordinator Harsh Vardhan Shringla. Geeta Mohan, who works for India Today, asked whether the non-participation of countries like Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt besides China was proof that their allegiance to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation was “greater than their strategic partnership with India”. Questions from Kashmiri journalists were met with unusual hostility.

When the journalist from French Radio said, the high security and school closures were affecting people’s lives, Singh said that as a “well-informed journalist”, the questioner must have attended a few meetings back home in France with similar restrictions. This prompted the journalist to ask whether Singh thought that schools were shut in France for such events. “I did not say schools. But whenever there is a meeting of this scale. you always have a scaled-up security, even in France, in Paris,” Singh replied.

Singh said that security had been beefed up also for reasons of hospitality. “Please don’t project it like that. The delegates from other countries would get apprehensive by what you have said,” he said.

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