Khwaja Shams-ud-Din : The tenure when Holy Relic was stolen
Jammu, April 26: Khwaja Shams-ud-Din (1922–1999) succeeded Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed in 1963 after Bakshi resigned from the Prime Ministership under Kamraj Plan and ruled the state as Prime Minister for a brief period of time from October 12, 1963 to February 29, 1964. It was during his administration that the Prophet’s Relic was stolen from the Hazratbal Shrine. This created a crisis which ultimately led to him being replaced. Many historians believe that it was an act by Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed to show the relic to his ailing mother at Jammu. However no specific answers are provided as the blame game has attributed the act to Pakistani Agents, elements in Plebiscite front etc.
Since Bakshi is supposed to have brought Shamsudin as his replacement it was widely believed that he was the actual remote control of the government. This did not go down well with the New Delhi leadership and resulted in the theft of Moe-e-Muqadas-The Holy Relic.
In his celebrated book The Frozen Turbulence former Governor of Jammu and Kashmir Jagmohan while giving a historical perspective of the incident writes, “ It was on December 27, 1963, that the Holy Relic was found missing from Hazratbal shrine. The window had been broken open and the Relic taken away. The news spread like wild fire. The crowd gathered. It appeared as if hell had broken lose. Shops were closed. A hotel and a cinema belonging to brother of Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed, and the Kothi Bagh police station were set on fire. The administrative machinery collapsed. A large number of senior officers of the Government of India, including the director, intelligence bureau, BN Mullick moved to Srinagar and tried to restore order. BN Mullick declared that the investigations showed that the theft was an insider’s job. He announced that the shrine would be kept free from watch for some time, so that the man who had taken away the Holy relic could keep it back safely. This is exactly what happened on January 4, 1964. The Holy relic was placed back superstitiously. But this did not satisfy the public. The agitation continued. On February 3, 1964, however, 15 Muslim divines, headed by Sayeed Mirak Shah, identified the Holy Relic and declared it as genuine. The agitation died down.
In any case, the incident exposed the near fatal flaws of the Kashmir political and administrative set-up. Unfortunately, no real lesson was learnt and no fundamental reform of the institutional framework was undertaken. Only patchwork was done and Shams-ud-din was made to resign”. Ghulam Mohamed Sadiq succeeded Shams-ud-din on February 29, 1964.
Unfortunately there is hardly any material available on Khwaja Shams-ud-Din in electronic form and due to paucity of time and daily updates on the subject we could not find detailed matter about him. Even the pictures of Shams-Ud-Din and Ghulam Mohamed Sadiq are not easily available on the internet. However we have tried to compile as much matter as we could arrange through various sources for the benefit of the readers on a daily basis.