SRINAGAR: Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said in New Delhi on Saturday that homegrown terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir had “never truly disappeared” and warned that the Constitutional changes made in 2019 were not a magic solution capable of ending militancy. He said those who believed the changes would act as a “miraculous cure” were the ones now surprised by incidents such as the April 22 attack in Baisaran, Pahalgam, and the November 10 blast in Delhi.
He argued that terrorism had never gone away. “When did it ever go away? It was there. Why do you use the word return?” he said. The Chief Minister described the recent incidents as a wake-up call for the country and said India had effectively drawn a “line in the sand”, making clear that any similar attack in the future would be treated as an “act of war”.
Abdullah suggested that this heightened threshold made it even more important to prevent such attacks, noting that the Delhi blast’s apparent domestic origin was the only “saving grace”, preventing the Government from immediately invoking what he termed the “Modi doctrine on internal security”.
He strongly criticised the Union Territory governance model, saying an elected administration could not be kept at arm’s length from security-related decisions. Abdullah said that as Chief Minister he was not being briefed on crucial developments, adding that he learnt about the Delhi blast “from the newspaper”. He compared this with his first term, when the DGP would “instantly” inform him of any major incident. “The Union Territory model does not work,” he said.
Abdullah recounted hearing an unofficial anecdote about how the Delhi plot was uncovered after a jilted young woman approached the police about her former boyfriend, eventually leading investigators to a wider network and a doctor allegedly involved in the conspiracy. “This is the sort of thing that any other Chief Minister would hear officially. I hear it through chatter on the streets,” he said.
He also voiced concern that the unified public stance against violence, visible after the Baisaran attack, was being undermined by discriminatory actions in other States. He pointed to directives asking “foreign nationals and Kashmiri Muslims” to register at local police stations. “You are effectively saying that Kashmiri Muslims and foreigners are the same to you,” he said, adding that such othering made it harder to persuade young Kashmiris to study and work across India.
Abdullah said it was untrue that Kashmiris condoned violence. “They are as disturbed by what happened in Pahalgam as they are by what happened in Delhi,” he said, warning against painting the entire community “with one brush”. He said only a “minuscule minority” supported terrorism, while the overwhelming majority were students, workers, and citizens trying to earn an honest living.
Turning to national politics, Abdullah said the opposition INDIA bloc was “on life support” and at risk of being pushed into the “ICU” due to internal discord and the inability to match what he described as the BJP’s relentless, highly organised election machinery. He said that while the BJP fought every election “as if their lives depended on it”, the opposition often fought “as if we don’t care”.
He blamed the alliance’s failures, including the decision to exclude the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha from the Bihar seat-sharing arrangement, and criticised the bloc for pushing Nitish Kumar “back into the arms of the NDA”. He emphasised that only the Congress, with its national footprint, could provide the backbone for a serious challenge to the ruling party. “The heavy lifting will have to be done by the Congress,” he said.
Abdullah also said parties that traditionally received the Muslim vote had erred by taking the community for granted and only engaging before elections, creating space for parties like AIMIM that “espouse our cause for the entire period of five years”.
On the 2024 general elections, he rejected the suggestion that the results were a fluke, saying the electorate had sent a clear message to the Centre. He added that after the elections the Government had shown an ability to work in an alliance format, noting the shift from branding itself as a BJP government to calling itself an NDA government.
While reiterating that he does not support claims of electronic voting machine rigging, Abdullah said elections can be manipulated through voter lists and constituency structuring. He called the recent delimitation exercise in Jammu and Kashmir “essentially manipulation”, saying it had carved out constituencies to benefit “one party and its one ally”. Any revision of voter records, he said, must be “transparent and fair”.
On a lighter note, Abdullah said his stance on EVMs puts him at odds with his father, Farooq Abdullah. “My dad believes everything he gets on WhatsApp,” he joked.
