Thiruvananthapuram/Bangalore, Dec 01: "If it had
not been (Major) Sandeep's house, not even a dog would have
glanced that way."
This was how Kerala Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan
responded on Monday to the family of NSG Major Sandeep
Unnikrishnan slain in the Mumbai terror attack during commando
operations, igniting a controversy after smarting under the
snub from the angry father of the officer when he went to
Bangalore to offer his condolences.
The octogenarian CPI-M leader was turned away from the
Bangalore home of Sandeep, a Keralite, yesterday for what K
Unnikrishnan perceived as Kerala government ignoring his son's
supreme sacrifice by not making a condolence call in time.
"He (Sandeep's father) says that the Kerala chief
minister did not come whereas the Karnataka chief minister
came in the morning itself...and that Kerala has ignored him.
He got all worked up over this," Achuthanandan told 'Times
Now' in Thiruvananthapuram
The chief miniser asked "Is there a rule that the chief
ministers of Kerala and Karnataka should be there at the same
time?
After a pause, the chief minister went on to say "If it
had not been Sandeep's house, not even a dog would have
glanced that way."
"It is Sandeep's family and that is why we went. A
soldier's father should have had the sense to understand
that," the chief minister said.
But Sandeep's father said politicians were under
"compulsions and duress" to express solidarity with the terror
victims in an apparent attempt to get political mileage and
"I did not want to respond to them."
"Sandeep was a person who disliked anything under
compulsion and duress. I am his father, he would have
inherited the same thing from me," Unnikrishnan said, a day
after he virtually threw the Kerala Chief Minister out.
"And having seen from the media, they (Kerala ministers)
were under compulsion and duress. I did not want to respond to
them," he said, adding "And people who are protecting him and
the police people they assured me that they won't be coming."
Unnikrishnan went on to say, "When I saw them coming
again with even my regret not to come, I responded badly, that
was my state of mind. That is why I reacted so."
The distraught father however claimed he did not abuse
the Chief Minister nor use filthy words.
"Sandeep was not a regional, not even a national, he was
a universal figure. He did not want such a recognition," he
said, adding "I felt very bad that it is under compulsion from
all quarters that these two ministers came. So I didn't allow
him. In the process the Chief Minister sneaked him. Somebody
brought him inside and then I entered the house. I was in a
bad state of mind at that time."
The opposition parties in Kerala have accused the state
government of having shown disrespect to the Kerala-born
solider by not sending any minister to his funeral, attended
by a large number of pople including the Karnataka Chief
Minister on Saturday.
Bureau Report
First Published: Monday, December 01, 2008, 00:00