The recent assassination bid was the third such attack on Dr Farooq Abdullah in last 30 years which I remember very clearly for their details. 

The first that I recall was in 1997 while Dr Abdullah was on tour of Rajouri as Chief Minister. A young man as part of local youth delegation came close to the Chief Minister and delivered a hard punch on his face. Dr Abdullah bled. 

The man was identified as Yashwant Shinde from Maharashtra who was in Rajouri for quite sometime as an office bearer of a national organisation. 

Some of my very close college friends would often visit him in the lock up with food and other eatables. Upon being released, Shinde was honoured at function of which I am almost a witness. 

I remember people who knew him being very angry with the police treatment he received. 

The second time was probably in 2001. Shekhar Gupta, Editor of Indian Express, was delivering a lecture at the Jammu Club where Dr Abdullah was on the dais as chief guest while Education Minister Shafi Uri was also a speaker at the late evening event, may be around 9:30. 

A group of ABVP and BJYM members, already in the hall, suddenly rushed toward the dais. Back then, there were no commando-style NSG, SPG, or SSG teams around. Instead, a Sikh gentleman, possibly a DySP, led the security. 

You hardly see any photograph of Dr. Abdullah from the 1990s or early 2000s without this Sikh officer in the background. He and his team quickly sprang into action, grabbed the intruders, and dragged them out of the hall.

They were protesting the government decision to accommodate students of a dissolved private medical college in Srinagar in the two government colleges. Most students had, of course belonged to one community. 

The Farooq government had to withdraw the order. But, interestingly, the Central government under Vajpayee with B.C. Khanduri as Health Minister later devised the same solution at a much larger scale adjusting some students in the colleges elsewhere in the country. 

Kamal Singh Jamwal, the recent assassin has a much frank reason: “I wanted to do this for 20 years,” he says with pride. 

Attack on Abdullah Matter of ‘Great Concern’, Says Centre

Bid on Dr Farooq’s Life: LG Assures Thorough Probe, Orders Enhanced Security 

He appears to have come to the venue in cold blood, armed with weapon and motive. 

At a press briefing after the attack, Dr Abdullah said his assassin was possibly motivated by the “ongoing cyclic environment of hate in the country”.  

Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and many others have pointed to the security lapse, and called for accountability. 

Meanwhile, anonymously sourced reports have begun creeping into small media space to dismiss the breach theory and rather question Dr Abdullah for possibly being careless about his security detail. 

Both points are subservient to the actual story: the motivation.

 The author is a reputed journalist, author, policy analyst, and peace-building practitioner. He is the founding editor-in-chief of The Dispatch, focused on Jammu & Kashmir.

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