Azad’s man in DD discredits CBI in J&K

Director DDK Srinagar, Rafeeq Masoodi, exonerated under pressure from Minister, DIG

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Aug 31: Credibility of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in Jammu & Kashmir has suffered a great deal as the country’s premier investigation agency is understood to have surreptitiously exonerated a senior Doordarshan official who was the prime accused in Srinagar Doordarshan Kendra’s morning show scandal last year. If the official is to be believed, Union Minister of Health and former J&K Chief Minister, Ghulam Nabi Azad, besides a Kashmiri DIG, presently on deputation with CBI, have influenced the agency only to protect the accused involved in Rs 5 Crore software acquisition scam.

While conducting two raids on DDK Srinagar on 18-05-2009 and 10-06-2009, CBI had registered case FIR No: 02/A/2009/CBI/Sgr against Director DDK Srinagar, Dr Rafeeq Masoodi, two more DD officials associated with the acquisition, namely Ghulam Hassan Dar and Bashir Ahmed Mir, besides six private producers, namely Syed Gulzar Rizvi, Javed Ahmed Shah, G M Magami, Altaf Marazi, Ashfaq Marazi and Irfan Marazi.

Since the CBI had filed the FIR and conducted the raids in high media glare, it has not closed the investigation as a ‘matter not admitted’. Even after questioning over two hundred people and finding that a group of six private producers, all enjoying intimate relations with Dr Masoodi, had floated more than 40 fake banners to swindle the funds allotted for the morning show ‘Subhai Subhai’, CBI has filed chargesheet just against the two junior officials of DDK Srinagar. Their colleagues now call them as “scapegoats”.

CBI had started the investigation after a series of raids on DDK Srinagar on May 18th and June 10th in 2009. It had found and seized 1914 tapes, containing as many as 9,591 segments, purportedly acquired from the group of six private producers for the 5-days-a-week breakfast show. Surprisingly, in the DDK Srinagar records, there was no entry of the tapes deposited in the Producer Ghulam Hassan Dar’s office. Dar instantly revealed to CBI that he had received and dumped the tapes on specific verbal and written orders of Director DDK Srinagar, Dr Masoodi.

During the course of the investigation, Dr Masoodi’s involvement was established with foolproof evidence and corroboration from scores of witnesses, including Dar and almost all the private producers interrogated. Procured at the rate of Rs 5,000 per segment from a particular group of the private producers, in total violation of the codal procudure and without any public notification, the consignment involved payment claim of Rs 4.80 Crore as against the annual budget of Rs 1.50 Crore for the programme. Process of the payment was clandestinely underway when CBI acted on written complaints and launched the investigation.

According to sources, CBI learned during the investigation that six blue-eyed boys of Dr Rafeeq Masoodi had floated at least 43 fake banners and firms with fake bank accounts on the advice of Director DDK Srinagar. While an amount of over Rs 1.00 Crore was found to have been withdrawn against the acquisition and deposited in the accounts of the people, who claimed they had no knowledge of the transactions, a number of the account holders remained untraced. Masoodi was found to have extorted “advance commission” of more than Rs 40 Lakhs from the beneficiaries.

On March 8th this year, Union Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting, C M Jatua informed the Rajya Sabha that the CBI was probing into the allegation of malpractices by Director of Doordarshan Kendra Srinagar, Dr Rafeeq Masoodi, in bulk purchase of tapes. In a written reply, he said that a complaint had been received against Dr Masoodi alleging that he purchased tapes in bulk containing 9591 segments of programme “Subhai Subhai” from private produces to “obtain maximum amount of illegal gratification.” Jatua stated that the investigation report was “awaited” from the CBI.

However, in days of the Minister’s statement on the floor of the House, the CBI team was influenced by highly placed men in the Union capital. Under this intervention, the key accused have been let off and just two of his junior officials held guilty. This inspite of the fact that Dr Masoodi happened to be the approving authority and his written orders had been seized alongwith the tapes.

Enjoying intimate relationship with Mr Azad and his family for the last two decades, Masoodi was neither shifted nor suspended. Unlike other such accused officials in DD and other Government of India establishments, he was not either arrested or detained for a day for sustained questioning. Browbeating his subordinate officials and private producers with his clout, Masoodi has himself identified his saviours as Ghulam Nabi Azad and a Kashmiri IPS officer posted as DIG in CBI in New Delhi.

Dr Masoodi, according to insiders, has revealed that he had to compensate the IPS officer by allotting an in-house drama serial to his brother, Riyaz Gilani, in recent past.

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