Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh has flown to Turkey. (PTI Photo)

Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, who was in Israel on an official trip till Thursday, has flown to Turkey on a personal visit for a week before returning home on November 1.

Close aides, including Sports Minister Rana Gurmit Singh Sodhi, Advocate General Atul Nanda and Adviser to CM Bharat Inder Singh Chahal are with him.

Captain’s departure just two days after the Amristar train accident had evoked criticism from the Opposition, which receded only after the recent revelation that a Cabinet minister had allegedly sent inappropriate texts to a woman official.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court also took a dim view of the absence of the state’s top law official. During the hearing of a Public Interest Litigation on Thursday, the division bench of Chief Justice Krishna Murari and Justice Arun Palli expressed surprise over the absence of Advocate General Nanda.

“How can an Advocate General go on such a long leave,” the bench observed after an assistant advocate general sought adjournment on the ground that he was out of station.

Also, the hearing on a petition seeking stay on a probe by a Special Investigation Team into Behbal Kalan firing incident of 2015, earlier this week was adjourned to November 2 from October 26 after a single bench was informed that, “Advocate General Punjab is slated to be out of country on 26.10.2018 and will return on 01.11.2018. This trip was planned in advance.”

A senior Congress leader defended Captain asking, “Don’t you go on a holiday? Why cannot the CM go? We all say there should be a balance between work and family life. If he wants to spend time with his family abroad, where is the problem?”

But, belying the impression that he is on holiday, Captain issued a stream of statements through the week.

On Friday, a statement said he reviewed the preparations by the Department of Employment Generation and Training for the next round of jobs fairs, to be held from November 12 to November 22.