21/10/2025
Omar Abdullah’s Video Prompts Nayeem Akhtar to Recall 1985 "Political Earthquake”
Former minister and senior politician Nayeem Akhtar has evoked memories of a politically charged incident from forty years ago involving a senior police officer’s unprecedented act of defiance during a solemn Police Martyrs’ Day ceremony in Srinagar.
Akhtar revisited the episode in a social media post shared on Monday, while commenting on a video of Chief Minister Omar Abdullah paying homage to martyrs on Police Commemoration Day. The former minister used the occasion to recall what he described as a “bizarre but politically telling” moment that had rocked the political and bureaucratic circles of Jammu and Kashmir in 1985.
According to Akhtar, the incident took place during a wreath-laying ceremony presided over by then Chief Minister G.M. Shah, following the fall of Dr. Farooq Abdullah’s government after a split in the Abdullah family.
He wrote that after Shah and other dignitaries had laid their wreaths, Additional IGP (Armed Police) Ram Prakash approached the dais. But instead of walking toward the police memorial, Ram Prakash turned in the opposite direction and marched straight to the Chief Minister.
“Shah saheb, who to everyone was Gul Shah, looked a bit perplexed as Ram Prakash placed the wreath on his legs,” Akhtar recalled. “While saluting him, Ram Prakash in a loud police command style said, ‘Sir, yeh mala aap ke liye hai kyonki aap shaheed-e-azam hain. Aap ne to apne zameer ki qurbani di hai.’
The dramatic statement, Akhtar noted, “created a sensation” and mirrored the widespread resentment in Kashmir after what many described as a “palace coup” the toppling of Farooq Abdullah’s elected government by his brother-in-law Shah, aided by defecting MLAs and Congress support.
Akhtar added that Ram Prakash was known as a deeply religious, “God-fearing man,” often seen visiting temples even during law and order situations.
“He was placed under suspension soon after the incident and reinstated later,” Akhtar wrote, describing the moment as “a symbolic protest that captured the public sentiment of the time.”
By recalling the event alongside Omar Abdullah’s tribute to fallen police personnel, Akhtar appeared to draw a poignant connection between the continuity of institutions and the political upheavals that have marked Jammu and Kashmir’s history.
