After his release, Sheikh Abdullah delivered his first major public speech on April 20. He described his 11-year imprisonment as a bitter experience and stated that the turmoil in Jammu and Kashmir was still fresh in people’s minds. According to him, Nehru had realized that Kashmir’s issue could not be resolved through force.
In another speech at Hazratbal, Abdullah refused to accept that Jammu and Kashmir’s accession to India was irreversible. He declared that Kashmir’s issue could not be resolved unless exiled Kashmiri leaders Mirwaiz Mohammad Yousuf Shah and Chaudhry Ghulam Abbas returned from Pakistan and participated in negotiations. He also challenged the claim that Kashmir was an "integral part" of India.
On April 29, Nehru invited Abdullah to Delhi and hosted him at the Prime Minister’s residence. Their meetings led Nehru to allow Abdullah to travel to Pakistan and engage in dialogue with President Ayub Khan.
At that time, India and Pakistan had already held six rounds of negotiations between December 1962 and May 1964, under pressure from Britain and the United States. India was advocating for a revised ceasefire line to be recognized as an international border.
In the second half of May 1964, two critical events unfolded—the first was Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah’s visit to Pakistan, and the second was Jawaharlal Nehru’s death. With Nehru’s passing, all hopes pinned on Abdullah’s trip to Pakistan were shattered, and the prospects of resolving the Kashmir issue were lost once again.
On May 25, Abdullah arrived in Pakistan with a delegation that included Mohammad Afzal Beg, Mohammad Saeed Masoodi, Mubarak Shah, Justice Khwaja Mubarak Shah Naqshbandi, Chaudhry Mohammad Shafi, and Farooq Abdullah. However, Ghulam Mohiuddin Qarra and Mirwaiz Mohammad Farooq were excluded from the delegation at New Delhi’s behest.
On the international front, India suffered a diplomatic blow on February 10, 1964, when three members of the UN Security Council — Britain, Morocco, and Ivory Coast — challenged its claim that Kashmir was an internal matter and that previous UN resolutions had become obsolete.
British representative Sir Patrick Dean unequivocally stated:
"The final decision on Jammu and Kashmir must be made in accordance with the will of the people, through a free and impartial plebiscite under the auspices of the United Nations."
Similarly, the President of the Security Council, Brazil’s senior diplomat Carlos Alfredo Bernardes, affirmed that Kashmir’s right to self-determination remained valid, and the passage of time had not diminished the significance of earlier UN resolutions.
It is astonishing that even after six decades, the government continues to shroud the mysterious disappearance of the sacred relic in secrecy, failing to expose the real culprits. This was an incident that not only shook Kashmir to its core but also sent shockwaves across the world. Yet, it remains an unsolved mystery buried in the annals of history.
Sheikh Abdullah, who returned to power in 1975 with access to all official records, chose to remain silent on the matter. Similarly, Chief Minister Syed Mir Qasim refrained from unveiling the truth. Even Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad, who was blamed for the incident, made no attempt to defend himself.
Rumours persisted that Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad was writing his memoirs, in which he intended to reveal the full truth. However, according to his nephew, the late Bakshi Abdul Hamid, he abandoned the idea under pressure from Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
According to Khalid Bashir’s book, after returning to power in 1975, Sheikh Abdullah sought all files related to the disappearance and subsequent recovery of the sacred relic. He was determined to bring all aspects of the conspiracy to light and expose the real culprits.
Reports suggest that he even consulted a legal expert in his cabinet on how to proceed with the case. However, after reviewing the files, Sheikh Abdullah abruptly abandoned his plans, and the minister never heard him mention the matter again.
Another potential source for uncovering the truth was the memoir of Maulvi Mohammad Saeed Masoodi, a prominent leader. However, his manuscript mysteriously vanished.
On December 13, 1990, when Masoodi was shot dead at his home, his completed memoir was reportedly inside a bag near his bedside. It is said that his trusted aide, Mohiuddin Sufi, immediately took the bag for safekeeping.
The fact that Sufi took the bag at a time when the head of the household was either dying or had been assassinated raises serious suspicions. Later, when Masoodi’s son, Advocate Shabbir Ahmad, demanded the manuscript’s return, Sufi promised to hand it over but never did. Instead, he suggested co-publishing it. When approached again, Sufi outrightly denied the existence of any such manuscript.
Local police officers involved in the investigation also chose to remain silent. When writer Khalid Bashir scheduled an interview with Kashmir’s long-serving police chief, Pir Ghulam Hassan Shah — who had worked closely with then-Intelligence Bureau head B.N. Malik — Shah cancelled at the last moment.
Despite the magnitude of the event, the case remains shrouded in mystery. No one knows who was truly behind it, especially at a time when Kashmir appeared relatively stable for India. But the theft of the relic was like a stone thrown into the artificial calm of oppression, causing ripples that could not be ignored.
This very incident marked the downfall of Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad’s government and the erosion of his influence. His family had deep-rooted power in Kashmir, making their decline nothing short of remarkable. His close relative, Bakshi Rasheed, who had assembled the notorious gang known as the "Peace Brigade," also saw his influence evaporate.
The theft of the sacred relic was not just a crime—it was a spark that reignited Kashmir’s long struggle for justice and identity, a struggle that continues to this day.
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