Satya Pal Malik, trusted by the Narendra Modi government to preside over Jammu and Kashmir while it was grappling with fateful events, has alleged in an interview that the Prime Minister hushed him up by saying “tum abhi chup raho” when he as governor reported that the blame for the Pulwama massacre lay on the Centre’s own lapses.

In the interview with journalist Karan Thapar for The Wire news portal that was uploaded on Friday evening, Malik also said that the Prime Minister “does not hate corruption very much” and is “ill-informed”.

After the interview was uploaded, The Telegraph sought comments from the PMO and other ministries concerned on the claims made by Malik but had received no response till late on Friday night.

A rolling stone with an established record of jumping parties, Malik began his political career under the Charan Singh umbrella in western Uttar Pradesh and travelled across to the BJP via various Janata or Socialist formations. He recently expressed the wish to campaign for the Congress in 2024, but said he would not join any political party or contest elections.

Malik was appointed Bihar governor by the Modi government in 2017 and transferred to Jammu and Kashmir in 2018. The Pulwama massacre took place in 2019. When the BJP returned to power in 2019, Malik was retained in that post and was in charge when Jammu and Kashmir was stripped of its special status and placed under a long Internet shutdown. When the state became a Union Territory, to be presided over by a lieutenant governor rather than a governor, Malik was transferred to the Raj Bhavan in Goa.

In the interview, Malik spoke about the bombing of the CRPF convoy in Pulwama in February 2019 that killed 40 jawans and was turned into an election issue by the BJP. “CRPF people asked for an aircraft to ferry their people because such a large convoy never goes by road…. They asked the home ministry… They refused to give… They only needed five aircraft, they were not given aircraft,” Malik said.

Recounting the evening of February 14, 2019, he said the Prime Minister had called him from outside the Corbett National Park in Uttarakhand.

“I told it to the PM (on the) same evening. This is our fault. Had we given aircraft then this would not have happened. He told me, ‘Tum abhi chup raho….’ I had already said this to a couple of channels. He said, ‘Yeh sab mat bolo, yeh koi aur cheez hai. Hame bolne do….’ (National security adviser Ajit) Doval also told me, ‘Yeh sab mat boliye. Aap chup rahiye (Don't say all this. Stay quiet)….’ Mujhe lag gaya tha ki ab yeh sara onus Pakistan ke taraf jana hai toh 'chup rahiye' (I realised that the onus was being shifted to Pakistan, so 'stay quiet'),” Malik said.

None of the link roads to the highway on which the convoy was travelling had been blocked, he said, blaming the Union home ministry and the CRPF.

A candlelight tribute at the India Gate in 2019 to the CRPF soldiers killed in the Pulwama terror attack Sourced by The Telegraph

The former governor said: “It was 100 per cent an intelligence failure.” The car (that rammed into the convoy) loaded with an estimated 300kg of explosives had moved around villages in the area for 10-12 days before the bombing and was undetected, Malik said.

While such a large quantity of explosives could only have come from Pakistan, he said, these security lapses were to blame for the deaths.

Malik said he had not been told in advance about the Modi government’s plan to strip the state of its special status, but he knew it was coming since it had been on the agenda and had been talked about.

“Just a day before (the abrogation of special status under Article 370), I got a call from the home minister who said he was sending me a letter which I should get passed by the committee and send before 11am the next day,” Malik said.

Had he been consulted, he would have advised against downgrading Jammu and Kashmir to a Union Territory, Malik said. He said he guessed this had been done because the Centre wanted the police under its control, fearing a revolt.

“When I told the chief secretary about the letter (from the home minister), he said… they will barge into police stations, snatch arms, the police will revolt…. I said, ‘Don’t worry, I have worked for six months. I am confident that even a dog won’t bark’...” he said.

Malik said he had found the Prime Minister “ill-informed” during their discussions on Kashmir in 2018, when Modi had already spent four years in the top post.

In the interview, Malik repeated allegations he had made earlier about corruption in an insurance deal and a power project that he had stalled as governor. He named a business house, a former Jammu and Kashmir minister, and an RSS leader in connection with his allegations. The RSS leader has filed a defamation case against Malik for these allegations.

“I can safely say that the PM does not hate corruption very much,” Malik said, adding that he had been transferred from Goa, where he was governor, a week after he had complained to Modi against alleged corruption there.

However, the Prime Minister had supported him when he cancelled the “dodgy” projects in Jammu and Kashmir, he said.

Despite a recommendation for Z+ security and a house for him owing to an alleged threat from Pakistan, he only has a single constable currently protecting him, Malik said. “Sarkar chahti hai saale ko koi maar de,” he said when questioned about the lack of security.

“If only we work honestly in Kashmir. We never conducted fair elections there. We have rigged the results…. Because of these tricks, we don’t evoke trust.”

On his dissolution of the J&K Assembly in 2018, Malik contested allegations by former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti that he had denied her an audience to stake claim to form the government.

He defended himself, saying: “I was not in touch with him (Modi). It was Id… There was nobody to man (the) fax or anything in my office…. I was in Delhi. I reached at 4 o’clock. My chief secretary and our intelligence chief came and said there is a majority and if they send the letter, then administer them the oath…. But what is the rule? Governments are not made on Twitter.”

Malik added: “I dissolved the Assembly after 8pm. She had the whole day. There are three flights from Srinagar to Jammu…. Farooq Abdullah Sahab’s party said, ‘We are going to Delhi and will decide tomorrow’. Ghulam Nabi Azad did not categorically say they will support. Only Mehbooba was saying that she has a majority.

“There was horse trading going on at a large scale. She herself had complained and demanded that the Assembly be dissolved soon, ‘Our MLAs are being poached, we are being pressurised’. Farooq himself used to complain…. If they were incompetent, I am not responsible for that…. Of course, she is lying. She never called me in that period of time,” he said.

Malik, who had as Meghalaya governor made statements critical of the Centre’s handling of the farmers’ movement, criticised bigoted remarks and dog-whistling against Muslims by BJP ministers at the Centre and in the states.

The Adani-Hindenburg scandal may prove the Modi government’s Achilles heel if the Opposition unites for the next Lok Sabha polls, he said.

“It (Adani-Hindenburg scandal) is (an election issue). If they (the Modi government) don’t improve, Adani (scandal) will finish them off. If the Opposition gives a one-on-one contest, then they (the Modi government) cannot be saved…. He (PM) could not utter a single word in his defence (in Parliament),” Malik said.