A central health ministry document that appeared to have renamed Kashmir’s premier medical institute after Shri Krishna kicked up a storm in the Valley, forcing the administration to issue a clarification.
A document on the website of the National Health Mission (NHM) giving out details of support for a hepatitis programme mentioned the Sher-I-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences as “Shri Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences”.
The institute is named after its founder, former chief minister and founder of the National Conference, Sheikh Abdullah, who was locally called Sher-e-Kashmir (lion of Kashmir).
At a time when fears in the Valley that the NDA government was hell bent on changing the Muslim-majority character of Jammu and Kashmir are growing, the document triggered outrage.
The NHM director in Jammu, Yasin Choudhary, initially rejected the document as “fake” and “concocted” but later said there had been a clerical error.
“The erroneous document has been taken down. There was a clerical error at the Ministry’s end that entailed the wrong full form in the ppt (PowerPoint presentation). Request everyone to please don’t assume any unjustified notions,” Choudhary said.
Earlier, National Conference spokesman Imran Nabi Dar had termed the perceived renaming “shocking”.
Sheikh Abdullah, who played a key role in facilitating Kashmir’s accession, does not fit in the BJP-helmed government’s scheme of things.
Last year, the Jammu and Kashmir administration dropped “Sher-i-Kashmir” from the Sher-i-Kashmir International Conference Centre and renamed it as Kashmir International Conference Centre.
