MEA faces online fury after death of two officials

July 01, 2016 02:38 am | Updated 02:38 am IST - NEW DELHI:

Faced with unrest among junior officers over its handling of the deaths of two officers posted in missions abroad, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) says it is dealing with the aftermath through its internal “mechanism.”

“We are deeply saddened by the recent untimely demise of two of our officials. The Ministry has a mechanism to address the issues involved in death of officials while posted abroad. The Ministry is extending all support to the family members at this hour of sorrow to cope with the loss,” the MEA told The Hindu .

Trilok Chopra, Attache in charge of Consular, ITEC and Education in the Indian High Commission in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, fell to his death from his tenth storey residence in an upscale neighbourhood of the Tanzanian capital on June 20.

Over the past week, posts criticising the MEA’s functioning began to appear in a group named “IFS B-Z” on Facebook and they spread to many other Facebook ‘locations.’ The criticism became stronger after Tajinder Singh, Second Secretary in Indian embassy in Lisbon, Portugal, was found dead on June 22.

The Facebook posts seem to allege that Mr. Chopra and Mr. Singh were under work-related pressure.

Referring specifically to the case of Mr. Singh, the posts allege that he was unhappy as he was denied a posting of his choice.

“After a C* posting at Damascus, he stood posted at Washington. However, when he was on transfer-cum-home-leave, he was asked to proceed to Lisbon. Harassment and victimisation in the past made him depressed and finally he was forced to give up,” said one post.

It seemed to suggest that Mr. Singh was denied a post of his choice after serving in violence-torn Syria.

Some of the posts allege that officials from IFS-B have been facing discrimination and professional challenges from IFS-A officers in the ministry.

IFS-A officers are recruited directly through competitive examination conducted under the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC).

IFS-B officials are recruited under Indian Foreign Service, Branch ‘B’ (Recruitment, Cadre, Seniority and Promotion) Rules, 1964, which was amended in 2008. Though successive Foreign Secretaries have tried to mend the differences between the two wings of the MEA, the problem of perception seems to continue.

Senior diplomats said that the differences were not so severe during the previous decades. “As part of a class and caste-divided society, the foreign service also had its internal tensions in the previous decades. But the differences were never acute and no one flaunted superiority or tried to discriminate against colleagues. We served in difficult postings as a team, overcoming differences,” said former ambassador Satyabrata Pal.

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