The Congress on police net Saturday wondered whether alleged conman Kiran Patel’s adventures in Kashmir marked a security lapse or whether he had been part of some sinister plot that couldn’t be executed.

Patel had allegedly introduced himself as additional director (strategy and campaigns) in the Prime Minister’s Office, and been hosted in five-star hotels and tourist spots in Kashmir, granted access to high-security zones and provided with Z-plus security.

Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera said: “Without orders from the Union home ministry, Z-plus security cannot be provided to anybody. On whose orders was this thug given Z-plus security? Why was the government not aware of his activities for such a long time?”

Khera accused the Centre and the Jammu and Kashmir administration of “playing with national security” while also suggesting that the haze around the episode mirrored the mystery shrouding the Pulwama massacre of February 2014.

“Is this your intelligence mechanism and information network in Kashmir that a thug keeps playing with national security for five months?” Khera said.

He alleged this was a result of the Narendra Modi government’s focus on protecting the Adani group at the cost of governance and national security concerns.

“The Prime Minister should tell the country who will be held responsible — he himself or home minister Amit Shah? Who will resign for this grave lapse?”

Khera, however, also suggested that the matter could represent a murky plot of some kind.

“We haven’t forgotten February 14, 2019, when 40 CRPF jawans were killed in Pulwama. We haven’t been told how 300kg of RDX reached the spot,” he said.

The reference was to a car bomb attack on a CRPF convoy that brought India and Pakistan close to war and inflamed nationalist sentiments that are believed to have favoured the BJP in the April-May general election that year.

“We remember DSP Davinder Singh yelling at a DIG saying, ‘Game mat bigado (Don’t spoil the game)’. Whose game? Who was the director? Who is playing with national security? Where is Davinder Singh today?” Khera said.

Davinder, an anti-terror specialist posted in Kashmir, was sacked on charges of links with terrorists but was not prosecuted “in the interest of national security”, prompting Opposition parties to question the Modi government’s reluctance to punish him.

“That happened just before the (2019 general) election, and again an election is about to come. If anybody asks questions, he is branded ‘anti-national’. What’s this, playing with national security in the name of PMO? (Is this the government’s version of) ‘nation first’?” the Congress spokesperson said.

Khera used the word “toolkit” in connection with the Kiran Patel controversy, hitting back at the BJP for its president J.P. Nadda’s allegation that Rahul Gandhi was “a permanent part of this anti-national toolkit”.

“Is this Kiran Patel part of a spoiled game? What was the game? What’s this toolkit?” Khera asked.

Photographs purporting to show Kiran Patel with senior BJP leaders are in circulation.

His Twitter handle — in the name Kiran J Patel — projects him as a supporter of the Prime Minister.

Khera said Patel had thanked the Prime Minister for his mission in Kashmir.

The Congress spokesperson also underlined that the lieutenant governor of Jammu and Kashmir directly reports to the Union home minister.

He said it was unthinkable that a person claiming to be an additional director in the PMO would continue to receive special treatment for five months without the Centre’s knowledge.

If Patel was really a conman who succeeded in fooling the system, the affair exposes the incompetence of the people running the system, Khera said.

He asked whether anyone from the PMO was entitled to Z-plus security and five-star hospitality for months. He also wondered why the news of Patel’s March 3 arrest had been suppressed for around two weeks.

What makes the matter particularly suspicious for the Congress is the continuance of the alleged fraud for five months despite Patel’s complete lack of stealth or secrecy.

He kept advertising his mission in Kashmir, posting videos of his outings — from the Dal Lake to Gulmarg — under heavy security, and talking about industrialisation of the region and a plan to turn Srinagar into a “smart city”.

Patel had posted a picture of a snow-laden area, apparently at minus 9 degrees Celsius, with the caption saying: “Welcome to the workstation of Dr Kiran Patel.”

The security establishment in Kashmir and the Intelligence Bureau in Delhi appear to have failed to smell a rat for five months, even though a person claiming to be a PMO official frequently posted messages critical of Adani on Twitter. He even predicted a cabinet reshuffle, a strict no-no for a government official.

Patel flaunted his clout from Srinagar with frisky messages such as “Tum jalan beshumar rakhna/ Hum zalwe barqarar rakhenge (Keep being jealous, I shall maintain my sheen)”, accompanied with a photograph of himself getting into an SUV surrounded by armed military personnel.

He gave his address in Delhi as 34 Meena Baugh, an area with MPs’ bungalows.