New Delhi: Jammu and Kashmir police chief R. R. Swain has sparked a major controversy by claiming that Kashmir-based political parties were “cultivating terrorist network leaders for electoral benefits”. Responding to his statement, People’s Democratic Party (PDP) chairman Mehbooba Mufti calling for him to be sacked.
Barely hours ahead of the militant attack in Doda – in which four army soldiers, including a captain, and a member of the J&K police were killed – Swain claimed that there was “overwhelming evidence” to link mainstream leaders based in Kashmir with militancy, as Pakistan “successfully came to infiltrate all important aspects of our civil society” when J&K was a state.
“Things had come to such a pass that the so-called regional mainstream parties started cultivating leaders of terrorist networks through intimidations and sometimes directly to further their electoral prospects,” the DGP said during a lecture at the Indian Institute of Management in Jammu on Monday.
Swain also alleged that before the reading down of Article 370 in 2019, the governments in J&K headed by Kashmir-based mainstream parties “sabotaged investigations” of suspects who were allegedly involved in the “facilitation and financing” of militant recruitments.
However, with the exception of incarcerated Awami Ittehad Party chairman Engineer Rashid, who was recently elected as MP from the Baramulla Lok Sabha constituency, and PDP youth president Waheed Parra, no mainstream political leaders have been charged by the police with terrorism. Both cases are currently on trial.
The DGP, however, appeared to echo the views of the Bhartiya Janta Party-led Union government that has accused Kashmir-based political outfits of working for Pakistan and its spy agency, the ISI. Swain, however, did not name names, although some political observers linked his comments to the PDP chief who used to visit the residences of militants killed in encounters.
Mufti has also visited the homes of police personnel and civilians who died in conflict-related violence.
Additional director general of J&K police, Vijay Kumar, however, sought to rebut Swain, terming his remarks as a “personal opinion”. “J&K police is an apolitical and professional police force. We work impartially. What [DGP Swain said] could be his personal opinion,” Kumar, who headed the police force in the Kashmir division, said.
‘J&K is being run on communal lines’
Swain’s comments triggered a political storm with the PDP chief demanding him to be sacked. Referring to the attack in Doda, Mufti said, “By now, heads should have rolled and the DGP should have been sacked. In the last 32 months, nearly 50 soldiers have lost their lives. No one is being held accountable while the current DGP is busy fixing things politically.”
Speaking with reporters in Srinagar, the PDP president alleged that Swain was more focussed on breaking her party and harassing people of Kashmir than doing his job. She also accused Swain of communal bias. “We don’t need a fixer here,” Mufti said, visibly angry, “We need a DGP. In the past, a lot of non-local DGPs and administrative officers have worked efficiently (in J&K). But today, J&K is being run on communal lines.”
“Obtaining a passport has become a weapon and journalists are harassed. His [Swain’s] job is to arrest more and more people under the UAPA and to conduct raids, including on businesses, by agencies such as ED and CBI. Even mosque leaders are not spared. They are forced to work for the government or warned to prepare for prison time,” she added.
Hitting out at Swain, member of parliament from Srinagar Lok Sabha constituency and senior National Conference leader, Aga Ruhullah Mehdi, alleged that the DGP Swain was “working …. for a particular political ideology and political party.”
“While he was busy in breaking and making political parties in Kashmir, more than 55 army personnel, including officers of different ranks upto JCO, have lost their lives in different attacks in Jammu since 2023 only. Had he been dedicated more to his job as a cop and worked less as a political worker, these tragedies could have been avoided,” Ruhullah said on X, purportedly referring to businessman-turned politician Altaf Bukhari’s Apni Party.
‘Disdain and contempt for anything related to democracy’
Peoples Conference chief Sajad Lone also reacted sharply to Swain’s comments, terming them as “an indication of the disdain and the contempt for anything remotely pertaining to democracy” in the Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir which is under the direct administration of the Union government since 2019.
“Such statements by serving officers are an indication of the disdain and the contempt for anything remotely pertaining to democracy. Such a sad state of affairs and even sadder is the fact that the script writers of this sad state of affairs take pride in having brought J and K to this level,” Lone said in a post on X.
Without taking names, DGP Swain also said that the officers of the ranks of superintendent of police “were thrown behind bars and put alongside terrorists in jails” when Jammu and Kashmir was run by the regional parties.
However, it is not clear who the DGP is referring to. The only SP-ranked police officer who has been arrested for human rights violations, and put behind bars in Jammu and Kashmir, is Hansraj Parihar.
Parihar was nabbed in 2007 along with at least seven police officials, including DSP (Operations), Bahadur Ram, for taking part in an official racket in which innocent workers and menial labourers were abducted, branded as foreign militants and killed in fake encounters by security forces in exchange for financial rewards and promotions.
As SSP of the Ganderbal district, Parihar was accused of involvement in the abduction and killing of Ghulam Rasool Padder, a carpenter from Anantnag district, in a staged encounter. A case (FIR No 52/2006) was filed at Sumbal police station under Sections 302 (murder), 364 (abduction), 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 201(causing disappearance of evidence) and 344 (wrongful confinement) of the now defunct Ranbir Penal Code.
Last year, a court granted interim bail to Parihar in the case on medical grounds. A lawyer who followed the case closely told The Wire that the case was shifted to the Jammu wing of J&K high court following a petition by Parihar, “The interim bail has been made absolute,” the lawyer, said, adding that at least one suspect in the 2006 fake encounter was still languishing in jail.
“The case was professionally investigated by J&K police. The court also validated the evidence presented by the prosecution and held that the murder of Padder had ‘definitely shaken the basic faith and confidence of the common man in the working of the police organisation’,” the lawyer, who didn’t want to be named, added.
The remarks by Swain, who was appointed police chief on October 27 last year, after the retirement of his predecessor Dilbagh Singh, come at a time of heightened tensions in Jammu and Kashmir, where massive searches are being conducted in the Pir Panjal region and Chenab valley after a series of attacks on security personnel and civilians.
The attack in Doda on Monday evening was the sixth such incident in the Jammu region since June 9, in which 12 security personnel and 10 civilians lost their lives.
Note: A previous version of this report incorrectly identified S.P. Vaid as Swain’s predecessor. The error is regretted.
