NEW DELHI: Jammu and Kashmir Governor K.V, Krishna Rao last week accepted the resignation of Advisor (Home) M.A. Zaki Gen Zaki reportedly resigned after he had been publicly blamed by the Governor for the delayed deployment of the Army around the shrine at Chrar-e-Sharief which was destroyed at the end of a standoff between the Army and militants in May. This is the second time that Gen Zaki had tendered his resignation to Governor Rao, Interestingly, the other time had been during the standoff between the security forces and militants at the Hazratbal shrine in October November 1993, The resignation then had come around the time he was badly injured in accident in Srinagar. Although he had then cited family reasons for his wanting to resign, sources had said that he had wanted to quit over the administration’s handling of the siege, which providentially ended peacefully after 31 days.

The ineffectiveness of the “unified command” set up by the Governor to combat militancy in the Kashmir Valdey was also said to be a factor in Gen Zaki’s earlier resignation, He was persuaded to rejoin the State administration by Union Home Minister S.B. Chavan in early 1994.

Ironically, it was the second major confrontation at a religious place that led to Gen Zaki’s resignation. The disaster at Chrar-e-Sharief had led to severe criticism of the State administration by political parties.

The destruction of the shrine had force postponement of the Center’s plans to hold Assembly in J&K and Parliament had to amend the Constitution to extend President’s rule in the State by another six months.

It may be noted that Gen Zaki had been appointed as an advisor by former State Governor G.C, Saxena after Gen Zaki’s retirement from the Army in 1991.

Mr. Saxena had stuck to a policy of avoiding confrontation with militants at holy places during his tenure, even though militants had on several occasions’ occupied places such as the Jama Masjid in Srinagar.

Gen Zaki’s duties will now be discharged by another advisor, who is also a retired Army officer, Gen D.D. Saklani.

Article extracted from this publication >>  June 30, 1995