‘Still suffering from Kashmir hangover’: Goa governor Satya Pal Malik

Goa Governor Satya Pal Malik, who till recently was the Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, on Thursday said that he still suffers from a Kashmir hangover.

Speaking at the closing ceremony of the 50th edition of the International Film Festival of India, Malik, who oversaw a landmark political and constitutional transition in the region during his stint there, said that not a single bullet had been fired in J&K ever since the revocation of Article 370 in August this year.

“I just arrived in Goa three weeks ago. And I have come from Kashmir. So I am still suffering from a Kashmir hangover,” Malik said in his speech during the concluding ceremony of the festival, which was co-organised by the Union Ministry for Information and Broadcasting and the Goa government.

Malik said that before the Central government decided to revoke Article 370, which conferred a special status on the now former northern state, scores of people would be killed every week due to skirmishes.

“And now, even after Article 370 was abrogated, the Indian armed forces did not need to fire even a single bullet,” Malik said, adding that often bureaucrats would scare him by saying that at least 1,000 people might be killed in the aftermath of doing away with the special status.

Malik oversaw a controversial period as the Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, during which the central government abrogated Article 370 and bifurcated the state into two Union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.