Lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha terminated two more government employees on Thursday in the middle of the Assembly session, the action serving as yet another reminder that Raj Bhavan remains firmly in charge in Jammu and Kashmir.
The two employees were fired for their alleged involvement in terror-related activities under Article 311, which empowers the LG’s administration to dismiss employees without an inquiry.
Dozens of employees have been terminated by the LG’s administration since 2019, the year Jammu and Kashmir’s special status under Article 370 was scrapped. The return of an elected government had raised hopes that such draconian practices would end.
But not much seems to have changed after the Omar Abdullah government came to power. The elected government has no say in law and order issues, and LG Sinha has not extended the chief minister the courtesy of consultation on such subjects.
The LG’s administration this time did not even wait for the brief Assembly session underway in Srinagar to end.
The terminated employees are Ghulam Hussain, a teacher in the education department, and Majid Iqbal Dar, a teacher and former lab assistant. They are from the Reasi and Rajouri districts of Jammu, respectively.
The terminations were made under two separate orders, but no specific charges were cited except that it was expedient not to hold an inquiry for their termination in “the interest of the security of the state”.
Officials informally claimed Hussain was an overground worker for the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and had links with militants. He is also accused of facilitating recruitments and fundings in Reasi.
Dar was allegedly engaged in narco-terrorism, radicalisation of youth, and “terror financing through drug money”, “IED plots” in Rajouri and “continued subversive activities even during detention”.
Omar told reporters in Handwara: “I have always said, and I repeat it again today. The termination process, everybody should get an opportunity to defend themselves. The process under which employees are terminated gives them no opportunity for that. Most of the times they return to their jobs with the intervention of courts.”
“It is better to use courts. Those who are really guilty should be punished. But those who are terminated on mere suspicion, I think it is harmful for all of us.”
PDP legislator Waheed Para raised the issue in the Assembly and regretted that the terminations took place while the House was in session. He said such sackings had created fear among the employees.
PDP president and former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti said the dismissal had fueled concerns of a “wider agenda to disempower Muslims, especially Kashmiris”.
