Srinagar: Dissecting the entire scenario surrounding taking over of FAT schools by the government, Sajad Gani Lone, President Peoples Conference and founding member of the People’s Alliance for Change, today blamed NC for brazen complicity, adding, no Anti-Kashmiri action is possible without Kashmiri partners, and this time it is NC.
Coming down heavily on J&K government for the ban and takeover of 215 Falah-e-Aam Trust (FAT) schools, calling it an act of “unimaginable servility” by Kashmiri partners in power, Lone said: “How can it be possible in a democracy to ban religious institutions and stop them from functioning? These schools were operating openly in broad daylight, not in darkness. If you had any proof, you would have produced it. You only made a general claim and shut them down.”
Demanding that the order be revoked immediately, Lone while tracing the history of the ban, said that the legal framework used today was not created by the Centre but was made and enforced by Kashmiri political parties themselves.
“The law under which this action was taken was passed in 1983 by Dr. Farooq Abdullah’s government through the J&K Criminal Law Amendment Act, which empowered the state to declare any organization unlawful. The Governor gave assent on March 23, 1983. That draconian law was the first tool of repression.”
He recalled that the first time this law was invoked was on May 11, 1990, when Governor Jagmohan declared FAT unlawful under SRO 11.51.
“At that time, the Kashmiri partner was none other than Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, then Union Home Minister. It was under his watch that FAT schools were banned for the first time,” Lone said.
He further noted that in 2010, Omar Abdullah’s NC government issued SRO 123 under the J&K School Education Rules, creating a legal pathway for the government to take over schools if their management committees became invalid or came under scrutiny. “And this very SRO was used now for the takeover. These are their own legal tools, not Delhi’s,” he remarked.
Lone added, “When FAT was banned again in 2019, it was done by citing the 1990 order. But since there was no Kashmiri partner then, the order was never implemented. Again, in 2022, the administration directed cessation of activities in these schools, yet nothing was enforced. It is only today, in 2025, with the National Conference back as a Kashmiri partner, that the ban was implemented. So let the people know: no anti-Kashmiri action is ever possible without the overt and ugly facilitation of Kashmiri partners.”
Turning his guns on NC’s shifting stance, he stated, “Yesterday they made the ban, today they condemn it. If your founder members themselves brought this ban, then what is this condemnation for? Don’t make it a joke. This is not child’s play; it’s about 215 schools and the future of thousands of children. These political parties should take it seriously, not laugh at it.”
Lone accused the present administration of cowardice and complicity. “Even a UT government has power. The Education Minister can reject this order directly; she doesn’t need cabinet approval. But they are clinging to their chairs, hiding behind bureaucracy, and will justify a hundred such bans. They keep lying that ‘our secretary did this without our approval.’ How is that possible?”
