SRINAGAR: Head of Jammu & Kashmir’s bureaucracy BVR Subrahmanyam Friday triggered a political storm in Kashmir with his remarks that “not a single soul cried” over the detention of political leaders after J&K was stripped off its special status August last year.

Chief Secretary BVR Subramanyam addressing a press conference at Srinagar on Wednesday, June 12, 2019. KL Image by Bilal Bahadur

Reacting to his assertions, the unionist leaders in the Valley asked Subrahmanyam to “do his job rather than dabbling into politics”.

The controversy emerged after a report quoted Subrahmanyam as saying: “Jammu and Kashmir was a broken state and there was no system in place due to years of misgovernance, corruption and unbelievable levels of fraud committed by leaders of mainstream parties and separatist organisations. There, not a single soul cried over the detention of political and separatist leaders in August last year.” He said this while speaking with a group of visiting journalists, stated the report.

A 1987-batch IAS officer who was hand-picked by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said misgovernance and corruption had continued for so long that the system collapsed from inside.

“There was a terrible situation here. Things were designed for corruption. Mis-governance and corruption were for so long that the system has collapsed from inside. The whole state was a big Ponzi scheme,” he is quoted to have said.

As reported, he has said frauds in J&K were at “unbelievable levels”. “There were frauds in jobs, frauds in projects, frauds were everywhere”.

“The JK Bank CMD was the scamster number one. Twenty families or a maximum of 30 families milked the JK Bank. There was no accountability. All other PSUs (public sector undertakings) in other states submit their report to the assembly, the PSUs in other states come under RTI, CVC (Central Vigilance Commission). But the JK Bank is accountable to none,” he said.

Asked about the security situation in Jammu and Kashmir, Subrahmanyam said, “The day I can drive down to Pulwama just with my driver without police escort and pilot, we can safely say that the peace has returned to Jammu and Kashmir.”

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