‘Could Have Passed In J-K Assembly’: Ex-RAW Chief Dulat On Farooq Abdullah’s Article 370 Stand
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Amarjit Singh Dulat said that two days before the abrogation was announced, NC leaders Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah and Hasnain Masoodi had met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi.
Former RAW chief AS Dulat and former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah (Photo: ANI)
As the political storm grew over the mentions concerning National Conference (NC) patron Farooq Abdullah in a new book titled ‘The Chief Minister and the Spy’, former RAW chief Amarjit Singh Dulat made another shocking revelation saying Farooq Abdullah had told him that he could have “helped” pass the Article 370 abrogation proposal in the J-K Assembly if the Centre had taken him into confidence.
While speaking to news agency ANI, the former RAW chief said that two days before the abrogation was announced, NC leaders Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah and Hasnain Masoodi had met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi.
“I asked Dr Sahab (Farooq Abdullah) and Omar Abdullah, but they said they knew nothing… Dr Sahab said to me, ‘even if they (Centre) wanted to do this (abrogate Article 370), they should have taken me into confidence. Why did they house arrest us? We could have passed it in the Assembly if needed,” Dulat told the news agency.
#WATCH | Delhi: On his book on JKNC chief Farooq Abdullah’s stand on Article 370, former R&AW Chief Amarjit Singh Dulat says, “…Two days before the abrogation was announced, on August 3, Dr Sahab, Omar Abdullah and their MP Justice Masoodi, they met the PM… I asked Dr Sahab… pic.twitter.com/M6sbiA3Fz0— ANI (@ANI) April 17, 2025
Dulat, a former IPS officer, who served both the Intelligence Bureau and RAW and has long experience of working in and on Kashmir, said that Abdullah disclosed the details after the Centre engaged him to talk to the NC leader while he was under house arrest.
“No one in Kashmir supported the abrogation… The matter was taken to the Supreme Court… Why was so much force deployed? Entire Kashmir was shut down…’ No one could have been in support of the abrogation, but the NC or any other Kashmiri would say that there could be more ways…” he added.
A huge political storm grew on Wednesday after reports claimed that Dulat’s book mentioned that Farooq Abdullah privately backed the Centre’s move concerning Article 370. However, Dulat rejected the claim and said he is misquoted. “Absolutely misquoted. Nothing like this happened.”
He further said that his book is an appreciation and not a critique of the former Chief Minister.
Meanwhile, Farooq Abdullah strongly refuted the claims and called it a “cheap stunt” to boost the sales of the top spy’s forthcoming memoir, set to release on April 18. The 87-year-old president of the party said this was a “figment of imagination” of the author, insisting that both he and his son Omar Abdullah were detained for months at the time of the abrogation in August 2019 precisely because their opposition to the move was well known.
On August 5, 2019, the BJP-led central government revoked J&K’s special status and divided it into two Union territories. After the law was passed in Parliament, Kashmir was placed under a security lockdown that lasted several weeks. Several prominent leaders, including the Abdullahs and PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti, were placed under house arrest.
