Omar sore over photo of prez with gun

Monday, May 26, 2008

Omar sore over photo of prez with gun

New Delhi: A photograph of President Pratibha Patil holding an AK-47 during her ongoing visit to Jammu and Kashmir has been criticised by National Conference Chief Omar Abdullah.

In his blog, the former Union Minister said he wanted to see her photographs with children in some far-flung hamlet rather than "brandishing" an "object which has caused so much death and destruction in the last 18 years."

Patil was photographed on Saturday holding a gun while visiting a forward post in Jammu and Kashmir during her five-day visit to the state.

"The photograph was of President Patil brandishing an AK-47 and smiling... Somehow the two things didn't seem to go together," Abdullah wrote.

"They say a picture speaks a thousand words and I would have been thrilled to see a photograph of the President talking to kids, as a grandmother would, in some far flung hamlet about the promise of a better future," he said on his `The Kashmir Blog' (http://jknc.Org/blog/).

He continued: "I know she's the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, but the photograph reminded me of a rather forgettable Sylvester Stallone movie - `Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot.'"

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