Srinagar . Did Jagmohan Malhotra fail during his second term as governor of J&K, when terrorism went out of control in 1990? The answer to this question may be difficult, but it is not impossible to find.
Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s daughter Rubaiya Sayeed was kidnapped by JKLF on 8 December 1989. Mufti Mohammad Sayeed was the home minister of the country and his political arch rival Farooq Abdullah was the chief minister of the state at that time.
It is widely believed that Abdullah wanted to agree to the release of five top JKLF leaders, which would have ensured Rubaiya’s safe release.
Abdullah stressed that accepting the JKLF’s demand would lead to terrorism and create a conducive environment for future kidnappings by terrorists.
Mufti Saeed and his family members insisted that the JKLF was playing a long-standing political enmity against Abdullah Saeed by refusing to release the prisoners.
It was against this background that V.P. Singh appointed Jagmohan as the new governor of the state.
Jagmohan assumed office on 19 January 1990 and Abdullah resigned as Chief Minister on the same day.
It is well known that had Abdullah not resigned, Jagmohan would have dismissed his council of ministers.
A huge pro-independence procession was taken out in Srinagar and security forces stopped the procession in Kadal area on January 21, 1990.
Fifty protesters were killed in firing by security forces in village Kadal and the incident happened barely two days after Jagmohan took over.
It is believed that the Gaon Kadal procession was attended by a large number of Abdullah’s supporters, who found it an opportunity to vent their anger against the appointment of Jagmohan as the governor of the state.
A large majority of top officials in the local police and civil administration were loyalists of the Abdullah family. There was complete non-cooperation by the local authorities with Jagmohan and his advisors.
This forced Jagmohan to quickly bring in some senior police and civil officials from outside to re-establish the law.
During this, terrorists killed Mirwaiz Molvi Mohammad Farooq at his Nigeen residence in Hazratbal area of Srinagar. The terrorists believed that the Mirwaiz was negotiating peace with the governor’s administration.
The funeral procession was mishandled by the local police and the state intelligence utterly failed to alert Jagmohan that terrorists had attended the funeral.
Central intelligence agencies opened fire on a CRPF bunker outside Islamia College.
In panic, the security forces fired directly at the funeral procession and 60 people were reportedly killed in the incident on May 21, 1990.
Jagmohan had to face the wrath of the same central government that sent him as the governor of the state for a second term as he proved himself to be the most popular governor during his first term.
Jagmohan was recalled by the Center and General Krishna Rao was sent to take his place.
The question whether Jagmohan really failed as the governor of Jammu and Kashmir during his second term has a logical answer.
Jagmohan did not have time to re-establish the authority of an administration that had completely surrendered to the separatists.
It was virtually a one-man show as Jagmohan found every wing of his administration anti-national and infiltrated by his sympathizers.
It is said that his supporters in local intelligence snatched secret documents from official files and gave copies of them to terrorists to identify their targets.
In some cases, the separatist loyalists kept photocopies of the files and instead gave the originals to the terrorists, acting in haste.
Faced with these realities, it was not four months for Jagmohan to either prove himself or to regain the authority of a crippled administration.
He failed with the same hands with which he was supposed to succeed.
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