J&K LG's advisor Farooq Khan resigns, likely to get key role in BJP

Farooq Khan, an advisor to Jammu and Kashmir Lt Governor Manoj Sinha, submitted his resignation on Sunday evening and was set to be given an "important assignment" in the BJP ahead of the first assembly elections in the union territory, officials said.

Jammu:Farooq Khan, an advisor to Jammu and Kashmir Lt Governor Manoj Sinha, submitted his resignation on Sunday evening and was set to be given an "important assignment" in the BJP ahead of the first assembly elections in the union territory, officials said here. A retired IPS officer who was instrumental in breaking the backbone of terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir in the early 1990s, Khan had earlier served as a national secretary of the BJP and held various posts in the party's minority cell.

The 67-year-old is likely to be assigned the responsibility of preparing the party for the first assembly elections in the union territory. Though the poll schedule has not been announced yet, the officials expect that the elections will be held after October following completion of the ongoing delimitation exercise by May.

The erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir was bifurcated into union territories and its special status under Article 370 of the Constitution was abrogated in August 2019. In July 2019, Khan was appointed as advisor to then Lieutenant Governor Satya Pal Malik. Prior to that he was the administrator of Lakshadweep. Khan started his career in Jammu and Kashmir as a sub-inspector of police in 1984 and went on to become the inspector general of police. He was promoted to the Indian Police Service (IPS) in 1994.

He came into the limelight when he volunteered to head a special task force (STF) of the police in 1994 at a time when the morale of the force was low and security-related operations were being carried out by the Army and the BSF. The STF was set up with personnel from the Jammu and Kashmir Police and acted a crack team in anti-militancy operations.

Belonging to Poonch in Jammu, Khan was deputy inspector general of Jammu region and led crack teams to end a siege laid by militants at the famous Raghunath Temple in 2003. After his retirement in 2013 as an IGP and head of the Sher-e-Kashmir Police Academy in Udhampur, Khan joined the BJP in 2014 in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. A recipient of the president's police medal for meritorious service and many commendations from the army and other security agencies, Khan's entry into the BJP was seen as a move to woo Muslim voters in Poonch and Rajouri areas.

His grandfather Colonel (retired) Peer Mohammad Khan, who was in the army of Maharaja Hari Singh, was the first state president of the Jammu and Kashmir Jana Sangh.

PTI