Any observer unfamiliar with Jammu and Kashmir’s political history would find it unusual that the sitting MLAs and their parties are locked in a public row with an appointed administration over something as basic as personal security. The Budget session of the J&K Legislative Assembly, held in the winter capital Jammu, gave that dispute a prolonged hearing in late March.

The immediate trigger was the failed attempt on the life of Farooq Abdullah, the 88-year-old former Chief Minister and president of the J&K National Conference (JKNC). On the night of March 11, a 63-year-old Jammu resident, Kamal Singh Jamwal, fired at Abdullah as he was leaving a wedding reception at Royal Park in the Greater Kailash area. NSG commandos and J&K Police personnel deployed with Abdullah deflected the shot and overpowered Jamwal at the scene. No one was injured. Jamwal told police he had waited 20 years for the opportunity.

The attack shook the region’s political class. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, Farooq’s son, called it a “very close shave” and questioned how a man with a loaded pistol had reached the point-blank range of a Z-plus NSG protectee. A Special Investigation Team (SIT) was constituted within days. But in the Assembly, the conversation quickly moved beyond that single incident.

A violence that runs through generations

The sensitivity around security in J&K is inseparable from the last 37 years of its history. Since the outbreak of armed conflict in the late 1980s, thousands of civilians have been killed, along with politicians, human rights defenders, journalists, and activists on every side of the ideological spectrum. Alongside the Unionists, the political leaders representing the ideological camps that oppose New Delhi’s rule in Kashmir have also witnessed attacks and assassinations.

That history sits in the chamber itself. Sajad Lone, chairperson of the J&K People’s Conference (JKPC) and MLA from Handwara in North Kashmir, became visibly emotional. His father, Abdul Gani Lone—founder-president of the People’s Conference and a senior figure in the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC)—was shot dead at Srinagar’s Eidgah on May 21, 2002, by gunmen who opened fire as he attended the twelfth death anniversary commemoration of Mirwaiz Moulvi Mohammad Farooq Shah.

The coincidence of that date is its own grim footnote: Mirwaiz Moulvi Mohammad Farooq Shah had himself been assassinated by unidentified gunmen at his Nigeen residence in Srinagar on May 21, 1990. His son, Umar Farooq Shah—barely 17 at the time—was subsequently appointed the new head priest. He is now known as Mirwaiz Umar Farooq.

Sakina Itoo, the current Education Minister, lost her father, Wali Mohammad Itoo, to an attack carried out by suspected militants on March 18, 1994. He was shot dead in Jammu’s Talab Khatikan area as he came out of a mosque after Friday prayers.

The record from that era is longer still. On September 11, 2002, Mushtaq Ahmad Lone, who served as Law Minister in the J&K government, was killed during an election rally in Kupwara district’s Lolab valley.

Aga Syed Mehdi, father of the sitting MP from Central Kashmir, Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi, died in an IED blast near Magam in Central Kashmir on November 3, 2000.

In September 2004, Pir Hisamuddin, a 60-year-old advocate and political secretary to Tehreek-e-Hurriyat chief Syed Ali Shah Geelani, was shot dead in his Bemina home in Srinagar.

Against this backdrop, Sajad Lone’s response to a remark by Deputy Chief Minister Surinder Kumar Choudhary carried particular weight from his perspective, as he lost his father to bullets in 2002. Choudhary had accused Lone of occupying a government bungalow reserved for a Cabinet Minister. Lone replied, “I have had a tragedy in my house, an assassination, and I have a certain level of security. Let them arrange a house of that level for me, and I will vacate the government bungalow the very next day. I have no fondness for living there.”

The post-2019 equation

The broader argument in the Assembly was not only about individual grief. It was about who holds authority over the security apparatus in a region where that authority was reorganised in August 2019, when J&K was stripped of its semi-autonomous status and statehood and subsequently reconstituted as a federally administered territory under New Delhi’s direct control.

Law and order now falls under India’s Home Ministry. The Centre-appointed Lieutenant Governor, Manoj Sinha, supervises the security and police departments, not the elected government. The JKNC, which holds over 40 seats in the Assembly, found itself in the position of publicly demanding security for its own MLAs and its party president.

Speaker Abdul Rahim Rather voiced concern on March 31, after reports emerged of alleged security withdrawals from sitting MLAs, politicians across parties, and the JKNC’s party headquarters—the building known as Nawa-e-Subah. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah confirmed publicly that security at the JKNC headquarters had not been reduced but “completely withdrawn”.

“Given the current circumstances, we must remain vigilant and cannot take such matters casually. We have to understand that the past incidents cannot be ignored and must guide present decisions.” Rather said, cautioning that security decisions should not be taken arbitrarily.

Jammu-based political commentator Zafar Choudhary, who has written on the region for decades, said the exact scale of security withdrawals or downgrades from individual MLAs was not fully known, but the exposure of Nawa-e-Subah—confirmed by the Chief Minister—was notable given that Farooq Abdullah visits the building twice a week.

“India’s Home Minister is believed to have taken cognisance of the attack on Farooq Abdullah personally. The security arrangements should have undergone a comprehensive audit and upgrades wherever required,” Choudhary told Frontline.

He also placed the episode within a longer pattern. “Security allocation, scaling, withdrawal—this has for many years been an additional instrument of political messaging,” he said.

Legislators speak

The adjournment motion on March 31 was moved by JKNC legislator Justice (retired) Hasnain Masoodi. The Speaker disallowed the motion but permitted discussion on the security question at the close of Question Hour.

JKNC MLA Salman Ali Sagar, who represents Srinagar’s Hazratbal constituency, told Frontline that there have been at least three assassination attempts on his father, Ali Sagar. He alleged that security was being used to undermine the Assembly and its Members.

“You are providing security to nondescript people in Kashmir and even low-ranked police officers, but withdrawing or downgrading security of the MLAs to humiliate them,” Sagar told Frontline. He also told the house that intelligence reports placed at least three MLAs on militant hit lists and that bulletproof vehicles provided to them had been withdrawn after a couple of days.

“There is a threat perception. I don’t want to name names here due to security concerns. Our SSPs and DySPs have escorts and large security cavalcades, but you are playing hide-and-seek games with the MLAs,” he said.

Waheed Parra, MLA from Pulwama and a senior leader of the J&K People’s Democratic Party (JKPDP), raised the security concerns and position of former Chief Minister and party president Mehbooba Mufti. After the withdrawal of J&K’s special status and statehood in 2019, Mufti was asked to vacate her official residence at Gupkar in Srinagar and has since been living in Khimber on the city’s outskirts.

“It is a very dangerous area. Soon after the Pahalgam attack in April last year, security agencies said militants had been using the same track. Why is she being punished and made vulnerable in this manner?” Parra told Frontline.

Zuhaib Yousf Mir, spokesperson for the PDP, called the attack on Farooq Abdullah reprehensible. He said any reduction in security for MLAs, if accurate, would constitute a serious violation of constitutional principles. He also pointed to what he described as a disparity:“Relatively ordinary BJP workers are often accompanied by an extensive security entourage. Many of them reportedly face criminal or forgery charges. This disparity is both troubling and disappointing,” he told Frontline.

Muneeb Qureshi, spokesperson of the J&K People’s Conference, argued the episode was part of a wider effort to diminish elected politicians. “In the aftermath of August 2019 and the bureaucratic takeover of Jammu and Kashmir, there is a strange obsession to trivialise the political leadership here. The objective is to create a perception loss. Paradoxically, it appears that we are being penalised for propagating the idea of India,” Qureshi told Frontline.

The security question has also intersected with foreign policy statements. MP Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi and former Srinagar Mayor Junaid Azim Mattu had earlier alleged that their security details were downgraded after they spoke out against the US-Israeli military campaign in Gaza and the killing of people in the region.

An MLA from South Kashmir, who did not want to be identified, put it plainly: “After August 2019, Jammu and Kashmir is witnessing dispossession at every level.”

Gowhar Geelani is a senior journalist and author of Kashmir: Rage and Reason.

Also Read | Attempt on Farooq Abdullah’s life raises security questions in Jammu and Kashmir

Also Read | Kashmir is an open-air prison; a zoo for outsiders: Mehbooba Mufti