Rakib Altaf
SRINAGAR: The Government of India and the Governor of Jammu and Kashmir knew that the Army was working hard to overthrow Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, sources close to Mr Abdullah have told FreePress.
Mr Abdullah himself was also aware of the goings on.
Sources have confirmed a newspaper report that former Army chief, VK Singh, spent huge amount of money to scuttle chances of his successor taking over, and was hell-bent upon removing the state government led by Mr Abdullah here.
Mr Abdullah and the Army are known to have conflicting views on various issues particularly the Armed Forces Special powers Act which gives the troops immunity against prosecution for any crime.
But the sources say Gen Singh had personal grudge against Mr Abdullah.
They say General Singh was close to a prominent political party in the valley and had even “worked hard” to secure seats for them during elections once, when he was posted as GOC of the Victor Force in south Kashmir.
The sources have also told FreePress that a former Corps Commander in the valley was also party to the “whole plan” and “connived” with the political party against Mr Abdullah’s government.
These sources say that there is substance in the report that the state’s Agriculture minister, Ghulam Hassan Mir, was also party to General Singh’s plan to overthrow the government.
They say Mir would have been the Chief Minister in the event of the plan getting through.
However, a confidant of Mr Abdullah said the Chief Minister deliberately chose not to drop Mir from his cabinet so as to keep him under his watchful eyes.
A report in the Indian Express says Mir was paid 1.19 Crore rupees by the Army’s Technical Services Division (TSD). However Mr Mir has rubbished these allegations.
‘Reopened Wounds’
How VK Singh’s alleged plan of destabilising the government was being executed is not known.
However, a leader of the governing National Conference party, Nasir Aslam Wani, has hinted that the security forces deliberately provoked the summer unrest of 2010 as part of Gen Singh’s plan to destabilise the Omar Abdullah government.
Mr Wani recalls that the public unrest in 2010 was sparked off by a fake encounter carried by the troops in Macchil sector.
Another leader of the party, Devender Singh Rana, has said “We had forgotten the horrific incidents of 2010 wherein scores of young men were killed mercilessly in Kashmir. But the revelations have opened up the wounds again.”
Mr Rana has said “the revelations cannot be rubbished just because the actor having perpetrated the intrigue has been chief of the army staff.”
Saying that this is the first incident of its kind in the history of independent India, Mr Rana said a judicial inquiry or at least a CBI probe alone can bring out facts.
