A veteran Indian political leader was narrowly saved from an attempted assassination during a wedding party on Wednesday night, according to police and his family.
Farooq Abdullah, 88, is the three-time former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir and president of the regional National Conference party, and was attending the event flanked by his personal security in Jammu city.
Dramatic CCTV footage of the incident appears to show a man walking with Mr Abdullah’s entourage at the end of the wedding, pulling out a handgun and pointing it at the politician from behind.
Security personnel can be seen tackling and subduing the assailant almost immediately. Police say a shot was discharged during the incident but that Mr Abdullah escaped with no injuries.
Police say they have detained a 63-year-old suspect, a local resident identified as Kamal Singh Jamwal.
Mr Abdullah’s son, Jammu and Kashmir’s current chief minister Omar Abdullah, wrote on X: “Allah is kind. My father had a very close shave. The details are sketchy at the moment, but what is known is that a man with a loaded pistol was able to get within point-blank range and discharge a shot. It was only the close protection team that deflected the shot and ensured that the assassination attempt failed.”
He said that “there are more questions than answers at the moment, including but not limited to how someone was able to get this close” to a person with high-level security.
Police say that Jamwal confessed to the attempt during questioning and claim he told police that the attempt was due to a “personal agenda”.
“I wanted to kill Farooq Abdullah for the past 20 years. The weapon is my own, issued to me,” Jamwal was quoted as saying by police. He is alleged to have said that Abdullah was “lucky to survive”.
The authorities said the suspect appeared to have been intoxicated during the incident. They said he legally owned the weapon involved and that there was no evidence linking the attack to terrorism.
Deputy chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir Surinder Choudhary, also present at the wedding, called the incident a “major security lapse”, questioning how a weapon was brought into an event attended by senior political figures.
Investigations are ongoing, and the National Conference has confirmed that Mr Abdullah is “safe and fine”.
Mr Abdullah served as chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir three times: first from 1982 to 1984, when he succeeded his father, Sheikh Abdullah; then from 1986 to 1990; and again from 1996 to 2002, after elections were held following years of armed insurgency against India in the region.
In August 2019, when the central government led by Narendra Modi’s BJP moved to place Jammu and Kashmir under direct federal control and divide it into two separate union territories, Mr Abdullah was one of a number of senior local political leaders placed under house arrest.
The attack on Mr Abdullah has been condemned by parties across the political spectrum. Mehbooba Mufti, president of the rival PDP party in Kashmir, wrote on X: “Shocked to hear about the grave attack on Dr Farooq Abdullah sahab. Relieved to know that he’s safe and doing well. Hope police gets to the bottom of this very perturbing security lapse.”
Congress politician Tariq Hameed Karra posted on X: “Strongly condemn the shocking firing incident on former CM Farooq Abdullah saab and other senior leaders reported in Jammu today. Such acts of violence are deeply disturbing and raise serious concerns about the prevailing security scenario in the region.”
A BJP politician, Ravinder Raina, said: “This is an extremely worrying and very serious matter.”
