The Wire Staff 
Srinagar: A high-level meeting chaired by Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha to review the security situation in Kashmir valley earlier this week has triggered a political row with the ruling National Conference (NC) taking exception to the sidelining of chief minister Omar Abdullah.
Abdullah was conspicuously absent from the meeting, held at the police control room (PCR) in Srinagar, which was attended by J&K DGP Nalin Prabhat among other officers of J&K police, army, Central Reserve Police Force and other security agencies on Wednesday (February 12).
“Omar Abdullah sahab should have been invited to the meeting due to his vast experience in handling security matters in Jammu and Kashmir,” Nasir Aslam Wani, Abdullah’s advisor, told the Telegraph, while acknowledging that Sinha was responsible for overseeing law and order.
An amendment in business rules of J&K ahead of the assembly election in 2024 handed exclusive power over matters related to law and order and police to the LG.
During the meeting in Srinagar, Sinha urged the officers to “follow a zero-tolerance policy to tackle terrorism”.
“I have given J&K police and security forces a free hand to neutralise the terror ecosystem operating in the shadows. Those supporting and financing terrorism will have to pay a very heavy price,” Sinha said, according to a press handout by the Raj Bhawan.
The meeting was the second of its kind chaired by Sinha since the Abdullah-led government was sworn in October last year. On both occasions, Sinha didn’t invite the chief minister.
The meeting took place a day after Union home minister Amit Shah concluded a series of high-level meetings in the national capital with the officials of J&K administration, including LG Sinha, security agencies and others to review the security situation.
The meetings were held against the backdrop of the rising incidents of violence along the Line of Control in J&K. In the latest incident, an army captain and another soldier were killed in a suspected IED blast in Akhnoor sector on February 11.
Earlier this month, in the first targeted killing this year, a former army soldier was shot dead by suspected militants. His wife and niece were injured in the attack that took place in Kulgam district of south Kashmir on February 3. At least 500 people were detained by the police in response. Some of the detainees have been released by the police.
On February 5, Waseem Ahmad Mir, a civilian from Sopore, was killed in firing, allegedly by the army in north Kashmir’s Baramulla district, while Makhan Din, a young tribal man from Kathua in Jammu division, died by suicide on February 4, claiming that he was being tortured in a fabricated case of militancy by police in Billawar.
The ruling NC has been facing the heat in Kashmir over these incidents of purported human rights violations with the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) accusing the chief minister of cozying up to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) instead of standing up for the people.
Ahead of the assembly election last year, NC had struck a confrontational tone in its campaign by targeting the saffron party for revoking J&K’s special status and denying constitutional rights to its people.
However, after the party came to power, Abdullah appears to have toned down the rhetoric by stating that he wanted a cordial relationship with the BJP-led Union government.
Speaking with reporters in Srinagar earlier this week, PDP chief and former chief minister of J&K, Mehbooba Mufti, said that Wani, the chief minister’s advisor, has been constantly saying that law and order was not the domain of the elected government.
“As the chief minister of J&K, he [Abdullah] should have raised the issue [of civilian killings] with the home minister. NC has 50 MLAs in the assembly and two MPs in the parliament. People have voted in large numbers for the party but it is unfortunate that the chief minister didn’t take up the issue with the home minister,” she said.
Mufti and her daughter Iltija Mufti were allegedly detained at their residence and prevented from meeting the families of civilian victims in Baramulla and Kathua.
Abdullah, however, said that he had raised the issue of civilian killings during his meeting with Shah in New Delhi on Monday. He said that the restoration of J&K’s statehood and the upcoming budget was also discussed in the meeting.
Abdullah’s absence from the meeting chaired by Sinha, and the exception taken by the ruling party, suggests that the two highest public offices in J&K are at loggerheads.
In December last year, Sinha had extended the tenures of the vice-chancellors of two leading universities in the Union Territory without taking the chief minister’s office on board.
Abdullah government had taken exception to the transfer of Vishesh Paul Mahajan, a J&K Administrative Service officer (JKAS) from a district posting to the tourism department in Jammu division, even though the chief minister’s office is vested with the powers to transfer the JKAS officers.