PC’s chopper landed at Srinagar, later visits Gurez near LoC

Srinagar: Union Home Minister P Chidambaram’s journey from Pahalagam to Gurez suffered a halt as his helicopter had to land at Srinagar Airport today.
However, the Minister managed to fly to Gurez near the Line of Control (LoC) before flying back to the national capital.
At present it is not clear whether the helicopter was forced to land here due to some technical snag or there was any other reason.
Officials were not available to comment, however, sources confirmed to UNI that Mr Chidambaram flew to Gurez later.
At Neeru, Border Security Force (BSF) TAC headquarter had an interaction with senior BSF officials before the minister flew back to Srinagar.
He had aerial survey of the border area, which remained cut off from the rest of the state due to snowfall for six winter months.
Earlier, official sources said after a night halt at Pahalgam, base camp of holy Amarnath cave shrine, where he chaired a high-level meeting about yatra security, Mr Chidambaram’s helicopter left for Gurez, a border town, surrounded by the Pakistani Army from three sides.
He was scheduled to conduct an aerial survey of the border area, where Border Security Force (BSF) remained deployed, before flying back to Srinagar and later to the national capital.
Unconfirmed reports said when the chopper of Mr Chidambaram was flying over Srinagar, the pilot of the helicopter reportedly felt uncomfortable with the flight parameters about half-an-hour after taking off from Pahalgam.
The chopper landed at Srinagar safely, they said, Director General of BSF was also onboard the aircraft.
Mr Chidambaram arrived here on June 20 afternoon on a two-day visit to the Kashmir valley, where he reviewed security and political situation with Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, his cabinet colleagues and top paramilitary forces, intelligence agencies and state police.
He had a separate meeting with state Congress leaders and also met Governor N N Vohra.