KSAN: After over a month of effort to rescue the trapped miners without much to show for it and during which time it even came in for flak from the Supreme Court for tardy progress, frustration seems to have overtaken the administration and it has started venting it on the media.
On Friday, media personnel were first stopped at a distance from the mine and told they were not allowed to proceed any further. Later, they were allowed, but once up on the hillock where the mine sits, they were all but shooed away once the Director General of Police arrived — for the first time since the accident.
Nobody was allowed to speak to the media and even the police chief just walked past ignoring requests for an interaction.
The DC and the SP have allegedly instructed all officials and even kin of trapped miners not to speak to the media.
An official, who was earlier designated as spokesperson for the operations, has now been reportedly replaced by the Commissioner & Secretary, Political department, S Kharmalki, but he is posted at Shillong.
The media group — Ksan Op — in Whatsapp is flooded with queries which go unanswered more often than not; some queries could perhaps be answered even in syllables, but even those are avoided. On a daily basis, the administration just posts proceedings of the day, like, for instance, how many litres of water have been pumped out from the mines. The detection of a body in the mine — perhaps the only success so far — was also suppressed.
The message seems to be: Be happy with what we give, don’t ask questions.
