‘Ill-informed, ignorant, wanted to blame Pakistan for Pulwama’: Former Indian Governor on Modi

Satya Pal Malik, the last governor of the now Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) before it was divided has claimed that Indian Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi is extremely “ill-informed’.

Malik, who was governor during the Pulwama terror attack of February 2019 and during the scrapping of Article 370 in August the same year, said that Modi is “ignorant” about Kashmir and told him [Malik] not to speak about the Union home ministry’s lapses which led to the killing of dozens of paramilitary troops in India-held Jammu and Kashmir.

He said removing Jammu and Kashmir’s statehood was a mistake and it should be restored immediately. He said, “Modi mast hain apne mein – to hell with it! This is his attitude.”

Conversing with acclaimed Indian journalist Karan Thapar, Malik said during the interview with The Wire, that he immediately realised that Modi wanted to use the Pulwama attack to blame Pakis­tan for the benefit of his government and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The former Indian governor said, “Mein safely keh sakta hoon Prime Minister ko corruption se bahut nafrat nahin hain” (‘I can safely say the PM has no real problem with corruption’). 

He further revealed that the attack on the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) convoy in Pulwama was a result of “incompetence” and “carelessness” by the Indian system, specifically the CRPF and the home min­i­­stry. Malik gave details of how the CRPF had asked for aircraft to transport its personnel, but was refused by the home ministry.

He said all of these lapses were raised by him directly when Modi called him from outside Corbett Park, shortly after the Pulwama attack. He said the prime minister told him to keep quiet about this and not tell anyone.