A day after Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik stirred a controversy saying that militants should kill those ‘who looted Kashmir’ instead of security forces, he accepted that he should not have made such a statement. “Whatever I said was in a fit of anger and frustration due to rampant corruption here (in J&K),” news agency ANI quoted Satya Pal Malik as saying.
At a tourism function in Kargil, Malik had on Sunday said, ““These boys who have picked up guns are killing their own people, they are killing PSOs (personal security officer) and SPOs (special police officers). Why are you killing them? Kill those who have looted the wealth of Kashmir. Have you killed any of them?”
Malik also said that the biggest problem plaguing the state today was corruption. The governor said that there were retired bureaucrats from the state who still held bungalows in Delhi. Malik said that he would send them to jail and take back all the property “looted” by them.
On Monday, Malik told ANI that many political leaders and bureaucrats in Jammu and Kashmir were seeped in corruption and his personal feeling was the same as what he had said at the function.
Omar Abdullah had taken to Twitter to take a jibe at Satya Pal Malik. “This man, ostensibly a responsible man occupying a constitutional position, tells militants to kill politicians perceived to be corrupt. Perhaps the man should find out about his own reputation in Delhi these days before sanctioning unlawful killings & kangaroo courts,” Abdullah posted on Twitter.
When asked to comment on Abdullah’s statement, the Jammu and Kashmir governor said that National Conference leader was a political juvenile tweeting on everything. “He is a political juvenile tweeting on everything, see the reaction to his tweets and you will find out,” Malik told ANI.