Centre excludes questions on Ladakh patrol points from Lok Sabha final list

The Centre has excluded questions on patrolling points in Ladakh in its final list of replies to be given in the Lok Sabha next Tuesday, a day after including the questions submitted by one of the MPs. The home ministry's tentative list of business mentioned the question initially, but the same was not in the final list readied on Thursday.

An official who did not wish to be identified said the list of queries raised by MPs were 'pruned' from 35 to 24. When contacted, a home ministry spokesperson did not comment on the reasons for dropping the question from the final list. MPs file questions with concerned ministries at least 15 days in advance to allow concerned ministries to prepare answers. Some of the questions are marked as 'starred' and asked by MPs in the House during Question Hour. Replies to the remaining are printed and distributed to members and the media.

ET had on January 24 reported that a paper presented at the annual DGP-IGP conference, authored by the superintendent of police of Leh-Ladakh, had said "Indian security forces were restricted or there has been no patrolling" in 26 out of 65 points from Karakoram Pass to Chumur. "There is restrictive patrolling by Indian forces between patrolling points 5-17, 24-32, 37, 51, 52 and 62."


Speaking to ET, Congress MP Manish Tewari said he had sought replies on the papers submitted at the DGP-IGP meet."We filed an RTI to find out how many questions raised by MPs in general and I specifically on India-China border issue were denied by the Parliament Secretariat but the RTI was not answered citing parliamentary privilege. We have filed an appeal before the appellate authority." He has himself submitted questions on the DGP-IGP conference paper.