Farooq Abdullah has Z+ NSG protection — the highest security tier India offers. In an election year, none of it mattered.
What Happened in Jammu
A gunman approached the 88-year-old National Conference president from behind at a wedding in Jammu’s Greater Kailash area and fired at point-blank range. The close protection team deflected the shot. A second round went off during the scuffle. Abdullah was unhurt. The attacker — 63-year-old Kamal Singh Jamwal — was overpowered by security and guests.
Deputy CM Surinder Choudhary, who was at the same wedding, later confirmed no local police were present at the venue. An armed man reached within arm’s length of a Z+ protectee at a public function. That’s the fact the 7-member SIT now has to explain.
Who Is Kamal Singh Jamwal
Not a militant. Not a political operative. Jamwal is a school dropout from one of Purani Mandi’s oldest families — his father was a senior police officer. He ran a string of failed businesses: a hotel in Manali, another in Ramban, an eatery in Old Jammu. He dabbled in politics through the Panthers Party, lost a municipal election, and more recently claimed to lead a religious outfit called Dharmik Jagran Manch.
He told police he’d wanted to kill Abdullah for 20 years — blaming him for the spread of terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir. He was inebriated when he pulled the trigger.
That profile — personal grievance, no criminal history, a licensed revolver — is exactly what makes this harder to prevent than an organised attack.
What the SIT Is Asking
J&K Police formed the SIT on March 14, led by the DIG of the Jammu-Samba-Kathua range under IGP Bhim Sen Tuti’s supervision. Questioning of Jamwal began March 16. He’s in five-day police custody.
The probe has two tracks. First: Jamwal’s motive — what specifically triggered a grudge he claims dates back two decades, and whether anyone else was involved. Second, and more consequential: how the security apparatus let a man with a loaded revolver walk up to a former chief minister at a crowded wedding where the Deputy CM and senior NC leaders were also present.
The Centre has ordered its own probe into the security lapse. Because the SIT can answer who and why. The question that matters most — how — implicates the system itself — and joins a pattern of cracks in India’s political order.