Kolkata: Union Minister Farooq Abdullah today
took a taxi to visit ailing CPI(M) veteran leader Jyoti Basu
in a hospital here, prompting the West Bengal government to
order an inquiry into how he did not receive a police escort.
Abdullah, Union Minister for Renewable Energy Resources,
however, made light of the incident saying, "It was an
experience for me to travel in a taxi in Kolkata. I enjoyed
it. My security guard paid the fare."
Asked about the total lack of security, he replied,
"Almighty provides me security."
Chief Secretary Asok Mohan Chakraborty, when asked how a
union minister was not provided police escort, said "I have
sought a report from the Under Secretary."
Abdullah, who landed at the NSC Bose International
Airport from Delhi in the morning, could not leave for
Kharagpur as scheduled after his helicopter could not take off
due to poor visibility caused by fog, the airport police said.
After waiting for some time, he decided to visit the IIT
Kharagpur's Salt Lake campus about which the police had no
prior information, the sources said.
The minister did not wait for police escort and hired a
pre-paid taxi to reach the Salt Lake IIT campus and from there
visited Basu at the AMRI hospital.
As news spread that the union minister had left in a taxi
without escort, police pilot vans reached AMRI hospital and
escorted him back to the airport.
The airport police said the union minister was to fly to
Kharagpur directly from the airport and claimed that they had
no prior intimation that he would leave the airport.
-PTI
First Published: Wednesday, January 06, 2010, 00:07