Omar Abdullah targets Prez Patil's AK-47 photo

HANDS UP: President Pratibha Patil lifts an AK-47 in Kashmir; (inset) the photo that appeared in dailies.

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Keywords: Blog, Kashmir

New Delhi: A photograph of President Pratibha Patil holding an AK-47 during her ongoing visit to Jammu and Kashmir has been criticised by National Conference Chief Omar Abdullah.

In his blog, the former Union Minister has said he would have wanted to see her photographs with children in some far-flung hamlet rather than "brandishing" the "object that has caused so much death and destruction over the last 18 years".

Patil was photographed on Saturday holding a gun while visiting a forward post in Jammu and Kashmir during her ongoing five-day visit to the state.

"The photograph was of President Patil brandishing an AK-47 and smiling... Somehow the two things didn't seem to go together," Abdullah wrote.

"They say a picture speaks a thousand words and I would have been thrilled to see a photograph of the President talking to kids, as a grandmother would, in some far flung hamlet about the promise of a better future," he said on his blog hosted at jknc.org/blog.

He continued, "I know she's the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, but the photograph reminded me of a rather forgettable Sylvester Stallone movie — Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot".