Have never banned books, never will, says J&K CM Omar Abdullah

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Friday (August 8, 2025) distanced himself from the recent ban on 25 books by the Lieutenant-Governor’s administration.

“Get your facts right before you call me a coward, you ignoramus. The ban has been imposed by the L-G using the only department he officially controls – the Home Department. I’ve never banned books and I never would,” Mr. Abdullah said in a post on X.

The J&K Home department, which comes under the Lieutenant-Governor, invoked Section 98 of the Bhartiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita 2023 on Wednesday to categorise 25 books as “forfeited for propagating false narrative and secessionism”.

A shopkeeper waits for customers at a bookshop in Srinagar on August 7, 2025. Books by prominent writers such as Arundhati Roy are on the ‘forfeited’ list.
| Photo Credit:
AFP

There is growing opposition to the L-G administration’s move to list books of prominent writers such as Christopher Snedden, A.G. Noorani, Sumantra Bose, Ayesha Jalal, Sugata Bose; Arundhati Roy, Stephen P. Cohen, Anuradha Bhasin, Seema Qazi, etc. as “forfeited” in J&K.