JAMMU: A man lunged at former Chief Minister and National Conference president Dr Farooq Abdullah just as he was leaving a wedding reception function, firing a shot at close range before being overpowered by security personnel. Abdullah escaped unhurt. The assailant was pinned to the ground, taken into custody, and within what appears to be a remarkably short window of time was seated before television cameras, composed and conversational, as though fielding questions at a press briefing.
So far, so reported.
The incident has since generated its share of commentary. Was there a security lapse? What drove the attacker? These are reasonable questions.
What followed in the hours after the arrest, and what has gone almost entirely unexamined, raises questions that are, if anything, more unsettling than the attack itself.
What the Security Question Misses
Abdullah is no ordinary protectee. He is a former Chief Minister, a former Union Minister, and the sitting Member of Parliament from Srinagar. He does not travel with ordinary security.
He holds Z+ category protection with NSG cover —the highest security cover extended to any individual. This security cover is a recognition that the threat environment around him is considered serious enough to warrant elite, specialised personnel.
The attacker, by multiple accounts, was a guest at the same wedding reception. He is caught on video approaching Abdullah from behind. He came close within arm's reach of Farooq Abdullah and deputy chief minister, Surinder Choudhary, and discharged a firearm before guards could create distance. Security personnel intervened in time to deflect the weapon and prevent a direct hit.
According to a report ,unnamed officials said that the attacked, identified as 63-year-old man named Kamal Singh Jamwal, a resident of Purani Mandi, waited for Dr Farooq Abdullah to emerge from the wedding reception and then fired from a pistol at him from point-blank range.
Another report states that the police said the “man was drunk”.
If the attacker was waiting outside the venue, as officials stated, why was a man loitering near the exit not identified as a potential threat by a Z+ NSG detail? What is the purpose of that level of security if perimeter screening at a semi-public event fails entirely?
If the attack was not pre-meditated and simply a case of a man’s drunken stupor, why was he carrying a weapon to a wedding?
And then there is the matter of what happened after Kamal Singh was pinned to the ground.
Where Were The Police?
Video footage from the scene, widely circulated on social media, shows the attacker being beaten by bystanders and other attendees at the venue after the attack. What the footage conspicuously does not show, for a substantial period of time, is a police response.
This is worth examining. An attempt was just made on the life of a former Chief Minister and a sitting Deputy Chief Minister at a public venue in Jammu city. And the first response visible on camera is a crowd beating the attacker, not law enforcement securing him.
How long did it take Police to arrive at the scene? Why are there no questions about the official timeline? Additionally, is it standard procedure for a Z+ protectee's security detail to manage the aftermath of an assassination attempt without immediate police backup?
Neither the official police statement nor the subsequent media coverage has addressed this.
Was it a press interview or briefing in custody?
Here is where the story becomes genuinely strange.
Footage released by Gulistan Television shows Kamal Singh Jamwal apparently, minutes after his arrest, seated comfortably on a chair before camera, speaking with what can only be described as composure and confidence. He is not distressed. He is not being questioned by investigators in any visible sense. And, he is singing like a canary. He states his name. He gives his details.
When asked why he did it, he offers this explanation: “I wanted to kill him for twenty years. Today I got the opportunity. But he was lucky to survive."
The cameras rolled. The statement was broadcast. The journalists present, if that is what they were, did not press further. The moment was packaged and transmitted to the public as a confession. The matter closed.
How was a man arrested for the attempted assassination of a former Chief Minister — a Z+ NSG protectee — placed before television cameras within what appears to be minutes of his detention?
Who authorised media access to a police facility to film a high-risk prisoner? Under what legal provision? On whose order?
In the same region where bona fide journalists have been routinely denied access to official government press events and public functions, the optics of camera crews obtaining seemingly immediate access to film a man accused of attempted political assassination deserve more than silence.
Was this an interrogation? A media briefing? Or something else entirely? If so, orchestrated by whom, and for what purpose?
"It's Personal." That’s it?
The police, within hours of the arrest, issued a statement doing two things: ruling out a terror angle, and noting that the shooter appeared to be drunk at the time of the incident.
Both claims are plausible but deserve scrutiny.
On what specific evidence, gathered in what timeframe, was the terror angle ruled out?
Kamal Singh is reportedly waited outside a marriage venue for a former Chief Minister, carrying a loaded pistol, and discharged it at close range. Is intoxication the explanation for the plan, or merely the condition of its execution? And does the presence of alcohol diminish or intensify the questions about how he passed through or around a high-security perimeter?
Then there is the ‘twenty-year desire to kill’ claim itself. The attacker admits on camera that he had been planning to kill Abdullah for two decades, and that day (March 11) simply presented the opportunity. This has been widely treated as the motive — a long-simmering personal grievance, irrational, and inexplicable.
But "twenty years" is not a motive. It is a duration. What happened twenty years ago? What does "personal" mean? Is there a documented history of grievance? Is there any record of complaints filed, interactions with Abdullah's office or party, prior incidents? Did anyone in Kamal Singh's circle know of this fixation?
The questions that are not being asked are not peripheral but crucial to understand both the security lapses and the motivation of the attacker.
(This report is based on publicly available video footage, media reports and accounts of the incident.)
Have you liked the news article?