2 min readUpdated: Mar 12, 2026 11:38 AM IST
The 63-year-old man, who on Wednesday night attempted to shoot former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Dr Farooq Abdullah, belongs to one of the oldest families currently living in the Purani Mandi area of Old Jammu, according to local residents.
In a video, the accused Kamal Singh Jamwal was seen telling police that he had “wanted to kill Farooq Abdullah for the past 20 years”.
“Today I got a chance, but he escaped,” he is heard saying. Asked why he wanted to kill the National Conference leader, he said, “Mera apna maksad hai (I have my motives).” He also claimed that he had been invited to the wedding function, where he opened fire at Abdullah from close range.
Abdullah escaped unhurt in what Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, Farooq’s son, called an “assassination attempt”.
According local residents, Jamwal’s family has been living in the Purani Mandi area prior to the reign of Jammu and Kashmir’s first Dogra ruler, Maharaja Gulab Singh.
Sources said that Jamwal lives off rent from ancestral properties that he has leased out. He does not have a criminal history, they said.
He was, however, inebriated at the time of the incident, police sources said.
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At the wedding on Wednesday night, along with Abdullah, J&K’s Deputy Chief Minister Surinder Choudhary and adviser to Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, Nasir Aslam Wani, were also present. Outside the venue, Choudhary told reporters that the incident was a major security lapse and “no one from the local police was at the event”.
Omar Abdullah later took to X, saying, “Allah is kind. My father had a very close shave. The details are sketchy at the moment, but what is known is that a man with a loaded pistol was able to get within point-blank range and discharge a shot. It was only the close protection team that deflected the shot and ensured that the assassination attempt failed. There are more questions than answers at the moment, including but not limited to how someone was able to get this close to a Z+ NSG-protected former CM.”
