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Saturday, July 14, 2012


How all inquiries failed in Health appointment scam --- (4)

Brazen nepotism, corruption ruled the roost in Anantnag, Kulgam

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Jul 13: With most of the fraudulent appointments in the Department of Health happening in the South Kashmir districts of Anantnag and Kulgam, middle-rung officials enjoyed a field day in illegally absorbing scores of their relatives in addition to hundreds others against cash payment. Chief Medical Officers (CMOs), Block Medical Officers (BMOs), Accounts Officers (AOs) and Treasury Officers, alongwith their clerks, broke all records of fraudulent appointments from 1996 to 2011. While most of the complaints fell on the deaf ears of the authorities, others were paradoxically used to blackmail the beneficiaries and extort more money from them.

Modus operandi
 Successive CMOs have been found to have issued most of the fraudulent orders under a particular pattern. In certain cases, they have simply issued transfer orders, shifting subordinate Class 3rd and Class 4th officials from one block to another. However, like in a previous appointment scandal in Department of Education, that surfaced in 1993-95 period in Anantnag district, the transferred officials had actually never been appointed into Government service. Fixed amounts of money have been collected from the clients and the fake “transfer orders” issued.

In compliance to these “orders”, the unemployed clients appeared before particular BMOs as the “transferred officials” and submitted their joining reports. Fraudulently created service books and last Pay Certificates (LPCs) followed and the “appointees” continued to project themselves as “old employees” while continuously drawing their salaries. This became possible only where the AOs, AAOs and Treasury Officers were duly roped in. Close relatives of the CMOs, BMOs, and their godfathers in politics and bureaucracy, were exempted from paying bribes but money was collected without relaxation from other clients, including distant relatives, neighbours and acquaintances.

However, in over 80% of the cases, clients were falsely shown by the CMOs as ‘Consolidate Paid Safaiwallas’ (CSWs) and “regularized” into the regular Class 4th pay scale of Rs 4440- Rs 7440 (pre-revised Rs 2550- Rs 3200). Fake dispatch numbers of the letters from Directorate of Health Services Kashmir (DHK) were recorded against Subject and Reference on these “orders”. These “orders” were issued and got implemented despite the fact that neither the CMOs nor successive Directors had, by law, any authority or competence to regularize even the factually engaged CSWs. Most of these “orders” from office of CMO do not carry any Order Number. Copies of these “orders” are invariably purported to have been dispatched to DHK but records at the Directorate indicate that no such documents or correspondences exist.

“In pursuance to reference quoted above in the subject, Shri Mohammad Amin Moochi S/o Jala ud-Din Moochi R/o Khannabal consolidated paid Safaiwallah of Block Mattan in hereby placed in the grade of 4440-7440 with the grade pay attached to the scale revised (2550-3200) against the available vacancy at Block Mattan. The Block Medical Officer will allow to join the candidate after proper verification of required certificates”, says the text of an “Order” issued by then CMO Anantnag, and now Deputy Director (Schemes) at DHK, Dr Nazir Ahmad Hakeem. It has been issued under endorsement No: EST/SW/4337-38 Dated 22-03-2010. Insiders insist that it could not have been possible in absence of coordination with then Director Health Services, Kashmir, Dr Mohammad Amin Wani, concerned Accounts Officer and Treasury Officer.

Early Times is exclusively in possession of dozens of identically drafted, issued and implemented “Orders”, mostly issued by CMOs of Anantnag and Kulgam. Almost all blocks of the two districts, particularly Pahalgam, Mattan, Shangus, Larnoo, Sallar, Anantnag, Qazigund and Kulgam, have witnessed this free-for-all loot of the state exchequer. Competence and integrity of Finance Ministers like Muzaffar Hussain Baig and Abdul Rahim Rather, has failed to be a deterrent. Notwithstanding a deluge of complaints and so-called inquiries, not a single of the fraudulently appointed/absorbed officials has been denied salary or dismissed.

All the delinquent officials of the departments of Health and Finance, who have played key role in the Health appointment mafia, have not only retained prize postings but have also been promoted to higher positions. Although, different departments and organisations are on record to have initiated inquiries over dozens of complaints received by senior authorities, no disciplinary or criminal action has been taken against the delinquent officers or the people they have appointed through fraudulent means.

Hush up
In one particular case, a former Deputy Commissioner of Anantnag is on record to have ordered an inquiry through District Employment Officer of Anantnag. Substantial evidences of criminal conduct by then CMO were collected with regard to fraudulent regularization of seven of such appointees in Mattan Block. It was established during the inquiry that one Sr Assistant, namely Ghulam Qadir, had got a number of his clients appointed through CMO Anantnag. Gh Qadir was found to have got fraudulently appointed his own brother-in-law and some other relatives in Larnoo and Mattan blocks and also his own son in Larnoo block. The investigation was completely hushed up after the accused officials greased the palms of the officers conducting the inquiry. In connivance with AO and Treasury Officer, all of the fraudulent appointees are continuously working and drawing their salaries from the state exchequer.

Head Assistant at office of CMO Anantnag, Pir Mohammad Shafi, is known to have got fraudulently appointed his younger brother, Pir Mohammad Ashraf, as Junior Assistant on ‘adhoc basis’ in 1996 and later got him fraudulently regularized by CMO Anantnag. Same official was later promoted to the rank of Sr Assistant. In 2006, he also got similarly appointed another client, namely Rayees Ahmad, as Class 4th official. On a complaint, then Director Health Kashmir, Dr Muzaffar Ahmad, canceled the appointment but due to Shafi’s clout, Rayees is continuously working and taking his salary in block Achhabal.

Shafi also got another of his clients, namely Irshad Ahmad Dar, fraudulently appointed as a class 4th official in block Qazigund. By way of CMO’s another fraudulent order, Shafi also got his own relative, Abdul Majid Shah, appointed in Anantnag. By another CMO, he also got a Driver fraudulently regularized in block Sallar. According to the established charges, he also got a number of his clients (CSWs) “regularized” as Class 4th officials in Mattan, Achhabal and Sallar blocks in the years 2008, 2009 and 2010. The siblings have been notoriously controlling Mattan, Acchabal, Sallar and Larnoo blocks.

According to the allegations, the duo has also got appointed Lateef Ahmad Narwari of Srinagar and Shabir Ahmad (brother of Sr Assistant Ghulam Rasool) in block Shangus, Jr Assistant of Shangus Block, Nasir Ahmad, alongwith his wife, Ishrat, then CMO Dr Nazir Hakeem’s relative, Samir Ahmad Nawab, besides one Imran against Class 4th vacancies by the CMO who had no authority or competence by law. An Accounts Officer conducted another inquiry and most of the charges were proved during the process. However, he too hushed up the inquiry fully after the Health officers appointed two of his brothers against Class 4th vacancies in Shopian district. A huge amount of money was additionally paid to the AO as bribe money. Records indicate that Vigilance Organisation too initiated preliminary verifications in at least three matters in South Kashmir but the investigation did not progress to its logical conclusion---allegedly due to payment of bribe money.

Political will?
Now that the number of the accused officers is running into dozens and those of the illegal appointees into hundreds, in at least 12 districts of J&K, unscrupulous politicians and bureaucrats have begun to scuttle the whole process with their hackneyed argument---‘it could lead to unrest among hundreds of families ahead of the 2014 elections’! Would Minister of Health, Sham Lal Sharma, still proceed against the guilty and terminate the services of all the 1000-odd illegal appointees in absence of the coalition government’s political will? It is a big question mark.

[Concluded]

END

Friday, July 13, 2012


[It has been pointed out by one of the followers of this blog that Ms Barjees, as mentioned in the following story posted on June 17 last year, is the daughter of  calligraphist Mr Misgar, not of Mr Miskeen. It is, accordingly, corrected. Inconvenience if caused to anybody is regretted-----AAF]


DNA is superior to Ph D in Cultural Academy

A rehabilitation centre for sons and daughters of litterateurs and journalists

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Jun 17: When arguably the tallest of the contemporary literary figures in Jammu & Kashmir, Prof Rehman Rahi, wrote appreciation of his own daughter, Nausheen Nighat, while pushing her for promotion from Assistant Editor to Editor, sometime back, one of the Valley’s top leading newspapers carried a story. In short span of few years, Jammu & Kashmir Academy of Art, Culture & Languages, commonly known as Cultural Academy, has become a rehabilitation centre for sons, daughters and other relatives of litterateurs and journalists.

Politicians, bureaucrats at work to hush up Health appointment scam --- (3)

Minister Sham Lal: All delinquent officials, illegal appointees since 1996 will be punished soon

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Jul 12: Even as Minister of Health, Sham Lal Sharma, today asserted that all the officials of his department involved in the infamous Health appointment scam, as also all the 1,000-odd illegal appointees, would be punished, dozens of influential bureaucrats and politicians, including Ministers, have begun sustained efforts to once again hush up the matter.

Minister of Health, Sham Lal Sharma, called this correspondent from Jammu to make it clear that the appointment scam involving officials of his department spanned over the last 16 years. “This is a fact that a couple of hundred appointments have taken place in 2009-2011 period but this mess has actually begun in 1996”, Sharma asserted. He admitted that 1,000 to 1,200 men and women had been fraudulently appointed in Health Department since 1996 but claimed that most of these were the illegal beneficiaries of 1996-2008 period. In its current series on the scandal, Early Times had reported yesterday that the number of illegal appointees in Health Department was believed to be around 1,000.

Mr Sharma claimed that current investigation would reach its logical conclusion “at any cost” as he was determined to punish all the delinquent officers on the basis of the final report of the inquiry being conducted by Special Secretary Health Iftikharul Hasnain Bari. He made it clear that all the 1000 to 12oo illegal beneficiaries would be got identified and prosecuted against and the government’s action in the matter would include termination of the services of all the fraudulently appointed incumbents. “Let there be absolutely no doubt about that”, Mr Sharma asserted.

Well placed sources in the government, meanwhile, disclosed to Early Times that political and bureaucratic mentors of the delinquent officers and the illegal appointees had suddenly activated themselves with the purpose of getting the investigation, as well as the government action against the guilty, stalled. This pressure group, according to sources, included a number of Ministers, MLAs, MLCs and senior and middle ranking bureaucrats and officials. If these sources are to be believed, one of two investigating teams had submitted its preliminary report about the irregularities in Anantnag district but the exercise in its other districts---Budgam, Pulwama and Shopian---had been temporarily frozen. Deputy Director (Dentistry) Dr Abdul Rashid Shah, is heading the inquiry in Anantnag, Pulwama, Shopian and Kulgam districts.

Nodal Officer of Mental Health at Directorate of Health Services, Kashmir, Dr Ghulam Ahmad Wani is heading another inquiry in Ganderbal, Bandipore, Baramulla and Kupwara districts. He has not submitted even the preliminary report about any of the four districts so far. Sources said that Special Secretary Health Mr Bari would carry out a focused and specific process of investigation on the basis of the findings of the two teams of Directorate of Health Services Kashmir. An identical exercise is likely to begun under supervision of DHS Jammu, Dr Madhu Khullar, in a couple of days.

As already reported, seven senior and middle rung officials of Department of Health Services have been attached earlier this week, pending inquiry against them. They, according to official sources, have been identified as the key actors in the appointment mafia in Anantnag and Kulgam districts. They include then CMO Anantnag and now Deputy Director (Schemes) at DHS Kashmir, Dr Nazir Ahmad Hakeem.

Authoritative sources revealed exclusively to Early Times that BMO Shangus, Dr Iqbal Bichoo, had already been attached to office of CMO Anantnag but now he is among the seven officers attached to DHS Kashmir. He is alleged to have got his wife, Dr Samina Akhtar, appointed fraudulently “on contractual basis” and also got him posted under himself in Block Shangus. Then CMO Anantnag, Dr Nazir Ahmad Hakeem, has been found by the inquiry as the man who has played key role in Dr Samina’s appointment as Dental Surgeon “on contractual basis” in Shangus Block. A letter with forged or scanned signatures of then Deputy Director Headquarters, Dr Avtar Krishen Pir, and purportedly addressed to CMO Anantnag claims that Dr Samina was required to be appointed on the recommendation of “Hon'ble Minister of State for Health”. This inspite of the fact that there was neither an elected government nor any “MOS Health” on 18-11-2008 when the letter is claimed to have been written and dispatched.

Dr Hakeem is alleged to have also arranged similar illegal appointment of over a hundred people including a number of his relations. He and all other six attached officers are residents of Anantnag and Kulgam districts of South Kashmir. Sources revealed that, among them all, CMO Kulgam Dr Altaf Ahmad Beg, had not been found directly involved but he, in coordination with then CMO Kulgam Dr Nazir Hakeem, is found to have managed fraudulent appointment of several youth in Kulgam area. These beneficiaries notably include son and daughter of CMO’s Sectional Officer Manzoor Ahmad Shah.

Sources revealed that the inquiry found BMO Mattan, Dr Gauhar Abbas---also presently incharge of Amarnath pilgrimage from Pahalgam side---involved in fraudulent appointment of a number of his relatives including his own brother. Dy CMO of Anantnag, Dr Abdul Rashid Matoo, has been attached on his alleged involvement in similar appointments. However, during the questioning he claimed that his signatures had been forged on all the fraudulent appointment orders.

[To be continued]

END

Thursday, July 12, 2012


Health’s appointment scam touched its zenith in Omar Govt –(II)

No action taken against CMOs, BMOs, CAOs, AOs, Treasury Officers, fraudulently inducted appointees

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Jul 11: Even as Dental Surgeons like Dr Samina Akhtar were “appointed” during Governor N N Vohra’s rule in the second half of year 2008 and hundreds others in five previous years, Health Department’s appointment scam touched its zenith in the last three years of Omar Abdullah government. A large number of beneficiaries were fraudulently appointed during 2010 and 2011---parallel to the Chief Minister’s celebration of the ‘Year against Corruption’! Over 300 men and women are estimated to have been “appointed” on Class 3rd and Class 4th posts against cash payments, ranging between Rs 1.00 Lakh to Rs 2.00 Lakh, during this period.

Nearly 40 officials of the Department of Health Services in Kashmir and Jammu, as also over a dozen officials of the Department of Finance, were identified by various complaints, reports and inquiries as the key actors in the fraudulent appointment mafia. They include Chief Medical Officers (CMOs), Block Medical Officers (BMOs), Medical Superintendents of different District hospitals, Chief Accounts Officers (CAOs), Accounts Officers (AOs), Assistant Accounts Officers (AAOs) and Treasury Officers, besides head assistants, senior assistants, junior assistants and other clerical staff of the two particular departments.

However, no purposeful action was ever initiated against any of them. Whenever there was huge clamour, a couple of officials----none in Finance----were attached or suspended for a few months. They were all reinstated and invariably given prize postings. The beneficiary appointees, whose ‘appointment’ or ‘regularisation’ was ab initio fraud and forgery, continued to draw their “salaries” from the state exchequer.

Admittedly, there were some officers whose signatures were fraudulently obtained by unscrupulous subordinates. They included former CMO of Budgam Dr Qayoom who committed suicide by hanging himself to death on discovering that his clerks had got fraudulent appointment orders signed by him. However, over 95% of the officers involved in the appointment scam collected money from beneficiaries, as well as prospective beneficiaries, retained a part of it and shared another part of it with other actors of the network.

In at least five matters, even the State Vigilance Organisation’s middle-rung and lower level staff also laid its hands on the illegitimate beneficiaries and their benefactors in the Government. However, all these cases were hushed up after the “investigators” collected their share of the booty.

Chargesheeting the accused in Beerwah and Kangan medical blocks, after years of lukewarm treatment, is widely rated here as an exception. An accused official, who crossed all limits of corruption and malpractices and made scores of fraudulent appoints as BMO Beerwah, was not stopped by anybody in his elevation to the higher position of CMO Budgam. When media pointed out that he was constructing Rs 15 Crore commercial complex after having raised a private nursing home and several houses, all that he had to suffer was an extra amount of money to the officials of Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC), who had issued the building permission in gross violation of norms and Master Plan.

Highly placed authoritative sources revealed to Early Times that the inquiry, conducted by a team of officials of the Directorate of Health Services Kashmir led by Deputy Director (Dentistry), Dr Abdul Rashid Shah, in the last three months, has noticed maximum of the loot-and-scoot in Anantnag, Kulgam, Pulwama and Budgam districts in Kashmir Division. Several cases of fraudulent appointment have also surfaced in Shopian and Baramulla districts. Sources said that under orders of the government, another higher level team, to be headed by Special Secretary Health and Medical Education, Iftikhar-ul-Hasnain Bari, would now carry out a more rigorous and extensive exercise to identify all actors and beneficiaries of the appointment scam. Sources said that Department of Health and Medical Education, in coordination with Department of Law, was exploring the bureaucratic mechanism of terminating the “services” of all the 1,000-odd fraudulent appointees.

Sources revealed that Dr Shah’s inquiry found the medical blocks of Shangus, Mattan, Larnoo and Sallar, in Anantnag district, as the worst hit by the appointment scam. In Budgam district, maximum of the irregularities have surfaced in Khansahab and Chrar-e-Sharief blocks.

Before his elevation to the post of Deputy Director (Schemes), Kashmir, Dr Nazir Ahmed Hakeem alone has been identified as the officer to have fraudulently appointed over a hundred men and women as CMO Anantnag, CMO Shopian and another posting in Kulgam district. His beneficiaries include a number of boys and girls who have been inducted under SRO-43 (compassionate appointment) though none of their family members had died in any militancy-related incident. Most often, appointments made under SRO-43, do not cause any suspicion among the people. Quite a large number of Dr Hakeem’s fraudulently issued ‘appointment’ orders refer to “recommendations and directions from DHS Kashmir”. None of these has been found as real.

Copies of these “appointment orders” have been purportedly dispatched to DHS Kashmir and CCed to other offices in the Government. It has been observed that none of the offices mentioned has received any such order copies from CMO Anantnag. Though neither CMO nor Director Health and other officers are by law competent to engage incumbents, gazetted or non-gazetted, on contractual or consolidated wages, CMOs and BMOs have been found to have engaged, and subsequently regularized in Class 3rd and Class 4th grade, hundreds of the beneficiaries through fraudulent means.

With few exceptions, who happened to be close relatives to the officers, CMOs and BMOs have fleeced each and every “appointee” to the tune of anything between Rs 1.00 lakh and Rs 2.00 Lakh. Qualification certificates (Middle Pass and Matriculation) of many of the “appointees” are also believed to be fake.

With an identifiable pattern in the modus operandi, most of the beneficiaries have been falsely shown as “consolidated paid Safaiwallahs” and subsequently regularized into substantive grade of Class 4th  [previous Rs 2550-3200 and revised Rs 4440-7440] by CMOs, particularly by former CMO of Anantnag. Some of them have revealed that the officers also drew huge arrears in their name from the treasuries and retained the money for themselves. A number of Head Assistants, Senior Assistants, Junior Assistants, Storekeepers, and even the drivers and domestic helps of officers, have managed the “appointment” of scores of their relatives through same dubious and fraudulent practice.

[To be continued….]

END

Wednesday, July 11, 2012


Dental surgeon among 1,000 appointed fraudulently in J&K Health Department

Anantnag leads but fake appointment scam spread over 12 districts; Bribe money worth Rs 1.00 Lakh to 2.00 Lakh collected from each ‘appointee’

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Jul 10: Over a dozen senior and middle-rung officers of Department of Health Services, including Chief Medical Officers (CMOs) and Block Medical Officers (BMOs), have fraudulently appointed nearly one thousand men and women in at least 12 districts of Jammu & Kashmir in the last four years against bribe money ranging between Rs 1.00 Lakh to Rs 2.00 Lakh from each beneficiary. Those appointed fraudulently include a lady dental surgeon and hundreds of women appointed or “regularized” on Class 3rd and Class 4th vacancies.

Well-placed authoritative sources today revealed exclusively to Early Times that that it was, in fact, “wrong distribution” of the bribe money collected from the beneficiaries that led to exposure of the state’s largest recruitment scandal, next only to the one previously exposed and hushed up in Local Bodies. Insiders, consequently, flashed substantive complaints to higher authorities. Still, the inquiries and their findings have been hushed up more than three times at District level as well as Directorate level after the potential sufferers coughed up more money.

Dozens of officials from Department of Accounts and Treasuries have been key actors in the network, alongside the officers of Health Services, in making these “appointments” and drawing salaries of the “appointees” regularly from different treasuries. Even as all of them are still untouched but unlikely to escape Finance Minister Abdul Rahim Rather’s wrath, Government has on Monday ordered attachment of seven senior and middle-rung officials of the Health Department.

Those attached last evening include Dr Nazir Ahmad Hakeem Dy Director, Kashmir (Schemes), Dr A R Matoo, in-charge Dy CMO Anantnag), Dr Altaf Beigh, CMO Kulgam, Dr G M Shaksaaz, Medical Superintendent, JLNM Hospital, Srinagar, Dr Bashir Ahmed Najar, BMO Larnoo and Dr. Gowhar Abbas, BMO Mattan. Another BMO, Dr Iqbal Bichoo, had been already attached to the office of CMO, Anantnag, on the charge of having fraudulently appointed his own wife. Sources said that over a dozen more junior officials, including head assistants, senior and junior assistants of Department of Health Services Kashmir had also been identified as key actors in the appointment scandal by the inquiry committee and all of them were likely to be attached or suspended within next 48 hours.

The appointment and regularization scandal, running through 2008 to 2011 period, according to sources, was no secret in Department of Health Services. Finally, it was earlier this year that Minister of Health, Sham Lal Sharma, and Director Health Services Kashmir (DHK), Dr Saleem-ur-Rehman, decided to identify all the actors involved in the scam, besides the illegitimate beneficiaries, by way of a thorough investigation. An inquiry, headed by Deputy Director (Dentistry) at Directorate of Health Services Kashmir, Dr Abdul Rashid Shah, has identified nearly 200 of the appointed beneficiaries and more than 24 of the Health Department’s officials involved in the scandal. However, actual number of the fraudulently appointed or regularized men and women was believed to be nearly 1,000 in Kashmir division alone. Most of them have been engaged from the year 2008 to 2011.

Sources said that Anantnag district in South Kashmir was leading in the appointment scandal but a large number of beneficiaries had also been identified in Pulwama, Budgam, Shopian, Kulgam and Baramulla district in Valley besides six more districts in Jammu division. Sources said that Minister of Health, Sham Lal Sharma, today called Director Health Services Jammu, Dr Madhu Khullar, to his office in Srinagar and directed her to also conduct similar inquiry in six districts of Jammu division. Significantly, six of the seven attached officers are said to be residents of twin districts of Anantnag and Kulgam.

Copies of the fraudulently made ‘appointment orders’, exclusively in possession of Early Times, indicate that the incumbents have been appointed even against gazetted vacancies of Dental Surgeons. For example, Dr Samina Akhtar D/o Ghulam Rasool Shapoo of Duru, Anantnag, has been appointed as Dental Surgeon by then CMO Anantnag and now Deputy Director (Schemes), Dr Nazir Ahmad Hakeem, at PHC Shangus, without any authority and competence.

Letter No: Estt-3/Gaz/DHSK/1-33 Dated 18-11-2008, addressed by Deputy Director Health Services (Headquarters) Kashmir, to CMO Anantnag claims that Dr Samina Akhtar had been “duly recommended” by then MoS Health and Medical Education (Pir Mohammad Hussain) for her contractual appointment as Dental Surgeon. Deputy Director has purportedly written to CMO Anantnag Dr Nazir Hakeem that Dr Samina be accordingly appointed and engaged as Dental Surgeon on contractual basis. Under rules, none other than Deputy Commissioner of a district was authorized to make such contractual engagement subject to availability of substantive vacancy and competition, giving chance of appearing in the interview to all the aspirant candidates.

Copy of the letter has been sent to BMO Shangus for “information and favour of further necessary action”. A copy of same has also been sent purportedly to private secretary of then MOS Health. Subsequently, then CMO Anantnag, Dr Nazir Hakeem, has directed BMO Shangus vide No: Est/Gaz/CMO/Ang/4880-81 dated 27-11-2008, to appoint Dr Samina “with the remarks that services of the Dental Surgeon may be utilized at PHC Shangus as desired by the DHS Srinagar”. Dr Samina has joined in November 2008 and she has been continuously paid her monthly salary without any objection by Accounts Officers and Treasury Officers. Interestingly, PDP-Congress coalition of Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad had ended in first week of July 2008 and there was no MOS Health in the subsequent Governor’s rule in November 2008.

During the course of investigation, former MoS Health and PDP’s MLA Shangus, Pir Mohammad Hussain, is understood to have categorically denied having issued any such written or verbal orders to DHS Kashmir or CMO Anantnag. He had, in fact, ceased to be MLA and Minister in the first week of July 2008. It has been further found by the inquiry that the letter from Deputy Director Headquarters was totally fake and it carried only the forged/scanned signatures of then Deputy Director (Headquarters), Dr Auvtar Krishen Pir.

[To be continued…..]

END

SD Rohmetra: Embodiment of all virtues and man in all matters

---------An obituary-------

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

My association with Daily Excelsior and its superhuman founder-editor Mr S D Rohmetra was dramatic. Six hours after I quit another Jammu-based daily in the third week of June 1995, I learned from my sources in the establishment that Lt Gen (Rtd) Mehmood Ahmad Zaki had resigned as Advisor (incharge Home and Security) to Governor. Some ‘serious differences’ with Raj Bhawan, I was told, were the reason. Holding charge of over a dozen key portfolios, an Advisor to Governor was worth a dozen of today’s Cabinet Ministers. As I was sure this scoop was exclusively with me, I decided to share it with the editor I had heard of but never met, seen or spoken to.

I was able to find a copy of Excelsior from a heap of newspapers on my bookracks. Now in possession of his telephone number, I got the editor through his telephone operator in my first attempt. It didn’t take him a second to recollect that I was working with his key competitor in Jammu.  I felt rewarded when he said that he had been reading my stories. I hastened to clarify that I had resigned. Then I revealed that I had a very important news for him--- Gen Zaki’s resignation. I was surprised to learn that he had already got it. Nevertheless, he told me candidly that he was not aware of the reason behind Zaki’s resignation which he got from me. “But, I hope you are not sharing it with others”, he said. “Not at all Sir”, I retorted to his satisfaction. He asked me to wait for his call at 3.00 p.m. next day.

It was at 3.00 p.m. dot that Mr Rohmetra called me from his office. “I am happy to see that you have not shared that news with anybody” he said of the scoop that published in Excelsior with Srinagar dateline perhaps on June 19th or 20th. “Can you join us?” he asked. I had not thought over it as I had no intention of working for Excelsior that dangerously carried the image of a “pro-India, pro-government, pro-Jammu, anti-Pakistan, anti-Hurriyat, anti-militant and anti-Kashmir” publication. I was aware how one of my colleagues had been kidnapped, harassed and physically tortured for beginning to report for Excelsior just a month before. “Sir, I have not thought over it. I need a day to return with my response”, I replied.

After consultation with family and a couple of colleagues, I accepted Mr Rohmetra’s offer next day. It took him just half-an-hour to send me the appointment order on a colleague’s fax with double the salary package I used to take from my previous employer. “This is just a token remuneration. You’ll rise and your salary will rise proportionately. Believe me, sky is the limit”, Mr Rohmetra reassured.

Within a short span of time, I was one among the highest paid newspaper journalists in Srinagar. Excelsior, I learned, enjoyed the distinction of being not only Jammu and Kashmir’s largest circulated daily but also the only newspaper in the state that gave almost all the wage board benefits to each of its 125 employees. That included one full month’s salary as bonus on Deewali, a sizable annual increment besides employer’s share to CF contribution. For nearly 14 years of my working as Srinagar bureau chief, from June 1995 to December 2008, I did not experience a single day’s delay in receiving my salary cheques or those of my staff. But what is more I got was the respect from the organisation besides the editor’s unflinching faith. Within weeks of my association with him, I found him completely the reverse of what he had been projected by a section of mediapersons in Srinagar. Embodiment of all virtues is just a weak phrase to describe his personality.

“Rohmetra has many friends and foes. Excelsior has none”, said the editor when I met him first towards the end of 1995 in Jammu. With that, he made it clear that I was free to write in favour of or against anyone.

Months later, Dr Farooq Abdullah addressed a crowded news conference at his Gupkar Road residence to announce that his National Conference (NC) had decided to contest the Assembly elections of October-November 1996. He sounded an outraged complainant. He read out a lengthy statement, explaining why NC would participate in the elections. As he concluded and was about to invite questions, he stopped. “Who of you is the correspondent of Excelsior?” asked he. I from his back responded and identified myself.

“You have reported that at my closed-door meeting with the American ambassador (Frank Wisner) at Maulvi Iftikhar’s home, I have objected to the idea of creating a separate Directorate of Tourism for Jammu. I have never done it. As I feel it could harm our prospects in Jammu, I sent a clarification to your editor but he did not publish it. He said it should come only through his Srinagar correspondent. And, can I know your source?” Farooq inquired amid pin-drop silence.

On my part, I clarified that it was a Jammu datelined item and I had no knowledge of its author or source. But, it was the first occasion when I noticed that only to keep my dignity, Mr Rohmetra had refused to take the clarification directly even from an old friend in politics. Amid a huge jostling in mediapersons, Governor K V Krishna Rao gave me his last interview as head of the government and Farooq granted me the honour of taking his first interview as Chief Minister. Then I realized the importance of being S D Rohmetra.

It was in the spring of 1997 that Farooq got his bosom friend Mohammad Yousuf Khan appointed as Chairman of J&K Bank. On some issues, the bank’s employees observed a shutdown. The high profile Chairman prevailed upon all newspapers who killed the news of the strike with total blackout. Many of them reported that the call for shutdown had little impact. On visiting several offices and branches in Srinagar Civil Lines, I reported that the shutdown was complete. It was at 11.15 p.m. that Mr Rohmetra called me. I convinced him that the strike was a success and that Mr Khan was only attempting to suppress the facts. He advised me to pick up Khan’s phone and listen to his version. When I made it clear to Mr Khan that we could, in no circumstances, report the strike from his lens, he asserted that his version was very important and relevant. Without changing a word from the main story, I carried Khan’s version verbatim in a box. Inspite of intimate relationship between Mr Rohmetra and Mr Khan, I enjoyed complete freedom in my reporting.

A rare test to Excelsior’s credibility came when almost all regional and national newspapers reported that the ace counterinsurgent and Muslim Mujahideen chief Azad Nabi had been kidnapped by militants and his dead body had been recovered from the vicinity of a brick kiln in Achhabal. My previous daily went a step farther and reported that Azad’s body was buried in his ancestral graveyard and many of his supporters shouted slogans at the funeral at Shihlipora village. I reported that he had simply gone underground and was expected to surface anytime. Next day, Mr Rohmetra asked me if I was fairly sure of Azad being alive. Same day, Azad surfaced. Though we had never met, Azad called me early that morning and said:“I salute the precision of Excelsior’s reporting”. It was a couple of years before he was actually gunned down.   

Upon my joining Excelsior, I had made clear to Mr Rohmetra that I could not use “terrorists or mercenaries” for militants despite my being strongly committed to non-violence. Almost all the dailies in Srinagar used to call the foreign militants as “mehman mujahideen” or “guest militants”. Excelsior would call them “foreign mercenaries”.

“Sir, I have neither invited them nor seen them coming in from Afghanistan and taking money from Pakistan for their activities in Kashmir. So, as a journalist I will call them only foreign militants”, I told the editor and he agreed. Within days, it was for the first time that this hardcore nationalist and patriotic daily accommodated press conferences of Hurriyat as well as gun-totting militants besides exclusive interviews with the separatist stalwarts like Syed Ali Shah Geelani and then beardless Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, who was plush with his first foreign visit (to Casablanca). However, its editorial remained unchanged and critical of the forces promoting terror, violence and suppression of the peoples’ voices. In our reporting, we ripped Police and security forces, alongside militants and counterinsurgents, on every human rights abuse but the editorial maintained a hardcore nationalist like.

In January 1996, it was exclusively due to our campaign in Excelsior that Governor’s Advisor Home, Mr Saklani, ordered demobilization of Kashmir’s first counterinsurgent militia, “Khwaja Commandoes”. Mr Rohmetra did not edit a single word from my pathetic account of how the Khwaja Commandoes cadres of one, Ghulam Nabi Rattanpuri (not his real name), had mercilessly gunned down two innocent civilians in close vicinity of the CPI State Secretary Abdul Rehman Tukroo’s village in Shopian area.

Without Mr S D Rohmetra’s support, it would not have been possible to neutralize certain uncharitable tags that had been craftily coined and attached to Excelsior by its envious competitors. In coordination with my senior colleague and Jammu counterpart, Mr Sanjeev Pargal, and other members of the team, it was an uphill task to transform Excelsior into a representative newspaper--- accommodating views and aspirations of all social, cultural, religious and regional entities of the state in conflict. And the deadliest one----‘Sarkari’---was creation of the people who had left no stone unturned in engineering the editor’s displacement in Srinagar and making him vulnerable in Jammu, while themselves assuming the more-loyal-than-the-king mantle for Kashmir’s militants and secessionist politicians. It didn’t take the people in Kashmiri long to see through sinister designs and appreciate the difference between the real, professional journalists and the jingoistic “actors of the neighbour’s cause”.

The title Excelsior had been stigmatized to the extent that, for years, nobody in the Valley dared to report for the daily. Nevertheless, Mr Rohmetra continued to religiously send the salary cheques to his staff without break. There was no reporting. Even the office had been captured. It was only after a legal battle of two years that we regained the premises at Press Enclave in Srinagar. “Keep a room for me”, Mr Rohmetra said. But, he never returned to Kashmir, not once after he was forced to leave in October 1989.

It was strange to notice that many of our fellow Kashmiris, who nurtured hate and venom against Excelsior for being “hostile to the interests of the Valley”, were those who had never read a single piece of news in the daily. I know hundreds of people who became our fans and committed readers upon their first look on our front page. It is a fact that we did not take upon ourselves the paid or unpaid task of discrediting the institution of media while keeping one eye shut and another open in reporting human rights abuse. We were bitterly critical of innocent civilian killings by militants and grenade and IED explosions at crowded places and quite often forced the non-state actors to condemn, disown and discontinue such violence.

Among hundreds of publications, Excelsior alone had the spine to report how 70-year-old fruit vendor, Samad Shera, the only bread-earner for 11 daughters---9 unmarried and two married but divorced---was blown into shreds in a landmine blast near SKIMS Medical College Bemina. A vehicle of Army’s High Altitude Warfare School (HAWS) Gulmarg was the missed target.

Even as my photographer Javeed Shah kept quarreling with me that the story was “suicidal” and it would endanger the lives of all of us, Hizbul Mujahideen spokesman called on phone. He wanted me to receive the organisation’s statement on the incident on our fax. Contrary to all of our fears, it sought Kashmir’s “apologies” for the blast and declared that the organisation would take care of the entire bereaved family.

Yet another “suicidal reporting” was the brutal killing of a young dental surgeon in Sopore. His throat had been severed with seven surgical razors after his daylong physical torture in an apple orchard. ‘Journalism of Courage’ had little courage to write a word on the brutality. We in Excelsior ran a series of five stories. Since the killing was widely attributed to then Lashkar’s dreaded militant, Munna Janwari, death alone was expected to be the reward for the reporter. As the series progressed, Lashkar’s spokesman Dr Abdullah Gaznavi called me on phone and wished me to record his organisation’s statement on the killing.

Surprisingly again, it was the reverse of our apprehensions. With none among the politicians sending a word of condemnation, Gaznavi strongly condemned the killing, disowned it on behalf of Lashkar-e-Tayyiba and stressed on the need of constituting a Special Investigation Team, comprising Hurriyat leaders, Bar Association and Kashmiri intellectuals.

As a mature and immaculate journalist, Mr Rohmetra knew the beauty of balancing things. He provided every support and encouragement to make Police, security forces and other state actors accountable for each and every atrocity. As previously reported, this began with our campaign to wind up Kashmir’s first counterinsurgent militia, Khwaja Commandoes, in January 1996. I did not relent until Governor’s Advisor Home, Mr Saklani, announced disbanding of the guerrilla group that had begun to ferociously eliminate civilians.

I remember, I was the only journalist in Srinagar to report that notorious Ikhwani Papa Kishtwari’s arranged gathering of 800 men was actually a group of labourers and employees of Joinery Mill Pampore, all forced to form audience of the counterinsurgent’s first (Lok Sabha) election rally near Bun Hall School in February 1996. Papa’s men came to my room at the protected MLAs Hostel with their note of protest but failed to cause any harm.

Resting on Mr Rohmetra, I was, yet again, the only journalist who reported that National Conference’s candidate Mohammad Akbar Lone was the real winner in Sumbal Sonawari in Assembly elections of October 1996 but Dr Farooq Abdullah was forced by Army and other agencies to surrender that particular seat to the Ikhwan founder Kukka Parray. Later, it was sequel to an Excelsior story that forced Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah to visit the house of a poor fisherman’s wife, Bakhti, who had been brutally killed by the Ikhwanis on her compound at Laharwalpora, Bandipore.

Farooq ordered a judicial probe and got all the gunmen involved in Bakhti’s killing arrested. She had died at a Srinagar hospital, three days after the gunmen had smashed her head with a stone, merely on praying for “justice” to the gun-totting extortionists.

Perhaps the more challenging situation emerged when a Major killed a young bridegroom at Tujjar Sharief village. Even as almost entire media in Srinagar either ignored the killing fully or just underplayed it, we drove all the way to the dusty village in Sopore. Next day, Excelsior carried the widowed young bride’s picture on the top of its front page with a detailed account of how the Army unit had lifted 20-year-old Tahir Makhdoomi on the first night after his wedding and blown him into pieces in a bomb blast in a nearby jungle. Mr Rohmetra was so much moved that he placed it as the banner lead, alongside the 19-year-old bride’s photograph, and called me in the morning only to inform me that he had sanctioned reward of two annual increments for me besides a cash prize of Rs 1500 for our photographer. Next day, Chief Minister Mufti Sayeed rushed all the way to Tujjar with his consolation for the family.

Mr Rohmetra’s support was invaluable, to say the least, on several other occasions. It was my incisive story on the human rights activist and lawyer Jaleel Andrabi’s killing by a unit of Sector-12 of Rashtriya Rifles that ruffled feathers at Geneva. I was told how then Prime Minister of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto, had carried a copy of the Excelsior story, with my byline, and read it out at the UNHC session to make her case against New Delhi. It was credible for the fact that Excelsior was neither a mouthpiece for militants nor part of Pakistan’s propaganda machinery. I feel indebted to the head of the SIT and then SSP Srinagar, S K Mishra, who is now an additional DGP, who shared the findings exclusively with me. 

We in Srinagar entered into a bitter confrontation with Army in 1997. “They can’t take everything for granted. Let’s teach them a lesson”, Mr Rohmetra said when he came to know that a unit of 20-Grenadiers had swooped on my house in Budgam without any reason, tortured my brothers severely and left them half-dead. He kept the front page at my disposal till the crisis was resolved by a group of Srinagar-based mediapersons.

Mr Rohmetra was firmly on my back when a DIG of BSF threatened to kill me on exposing a fake encounter in Gogjibagh area of Srinagar in 2003. Buoyed by support from the media fraternity in Srinagar, which remained firmly in solidarity with me, Mr Rohmetra took up the matter with then NDA Government’s Home Minister, L K Advani, and got the officer transferred from Kashmir within five or six days. “DIG BSF threatens to kill Excelsior scribe” is the story in archives of the Kashmir conflict. We identified the officer and his cellphone number alongwith full text of his threats.

Previously, when I got the honour of breaking the Kargil war for the world in my lead story, published in Excelsior on May 12th 1999, four days before others began working on it, Mr Rohmetra called me from Hague to shower his praise and greetings. He would never hide his liking of a piece, unlike many of the editors. 

He was never a tough task master. “Fayyaz Sahab, is there any story?” he would ask, daily. “Sir, nothing significant”, I would reply when there was really none or even when I was in leisure mode or busy with something different. “Don’t worry. Take rest and enjoy”, he would say affectionately. For 14 years of my professional relationship with him and three more years of purely personal association, I never found him disappointed, angry, arrogant, malicious or vindictive even for the worst of his ill-wishers. “They have a contribution in shaping my career. Their tirade took me up from a modest beginning. I am indebted to them all”, he told me once.

After I shifted to Early Times in 2009, Mr Rohmetra’s affection and acknowledgment of my reporting and analyses increased more. I maintained my relationship with him and other members of his family and organisation and continued to inquire about his health and happenings. Still, it was he who would call me, before I could, almost every day and would discuss politics, development, transformation and whatever dominated the media.

His last call came a couple of days before I left for Poonch to attend a cultural conference on July 1st. I tried his number, as also some others, but due to extremely bad signals almost all the attempts in Poonch failed. A night after my return I picked up my phone to call Mr Rohmetra. Suddenly, it rang up from a friend----only to inform that his innings was over.

The funeral pyre at Shastri Nagar cremation grounds was just a retake of my father’s burial in November 2005. “Work is worship”, both taught me. The day Mr Rohmetra’s father expired and I called him, an hour after the cremation, to express my condolences and inform that I would be flying to Jammu next day, he said: “No need to come here. The cremation is over and I am back in my office. This is the best tribute to our parents. Is there any story?”

END

Tuesday, July 10, 2012


SD Rohmetra: Man in all matters (2)

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

Without Mr S D Rohmetra’s support, it would not have been possible to neutralize certain uncharitable tags that had been craftily coined and attached to Excelsior by its envious competitors. In coordination with my senior colleague and Jammu counterpart, Mr Sanjeev Pargal, and other members of the team, it was an uphill task to transform Excelsior into a representative newspaper--- accommodating views and aspirations of all social, cultural, religious and regional entities of the state in conflict. And the deadliest one----‘Sarkari’---was creation of the people who had left no stone unturned in engineering the editor’s displacement in Srinagar and making him vulnerable in Jammu, while themselves assuming the more-loyal-than-the-king mantle for Kashmir’s militants and secessionist politicians. It didn’t take the people in Kashmiri long to see through sinister designs and appreciate the difference between the real, professional journalists and the jingoistic “actors of the neighbour’s cause”.

The title Excelsior had been stigmatized to the extent that, for years, nobody in the Valley dared to report for the daily. Nevertheless, Mr Rohmetra continued to religiously send the salary cheques to his staff without break. There was no reporting. Even the office had been captured. It was only after a legal battle of two years that we regained the premises at Press Enclave in Srinagar. “Keep a room for me”, Mr Rohmetra said. But, he never returned to Kashmir, not once after he was forced to leave in October 1989.

It was strange to notice that many of our fellow Kashmiris, who nurtured hate and venom against Excelsior for being “hostile to the interests of the Valley”, were those who had never read a single piece of news in the daily. I know hundreds of people who became our fans and committed readers upon their first look on our front page. It is a fact that we did not take upon ourselves the paid or unpaid task of discrediting the institution of media while keeping one eye shut and another open in reporting human rights abuse. We were bitterly critical of innocent civilian killings by militants and grenade and IED explosions at crowded places and quite often forced the non-state actors to condemn, disown and discontinue such violence.

Among hundreds of publications, Excelsior alone had the spine to report how 70-year-old fruit vendor, Samad Shera, the only bread-earner for 11 daughters---9 unmarried and two married but divorced---was blown into shreds in a landmine blast near SKIMS Medical College Bemina. A vehicle of Army’s High Altitude Warfare School (HAWS) Gulmarg was the missed target.

Even as my photographer Javeed Shah kept quarreling with me that the story was “suicidal” and it would endanger the lives of all of us, Hizbul Mujahideen spokesman called on phone. He wanted me to receive the organisation’s statement on the incident on our fax. Contrary to all of our fears, it sought Kashmir’s “apologies” for the blast and declared that the organisation would take care of the entire bereaved family.

Yet another “suicidal reporting” was the brutal killing of a young dental surgeon in Sopore. His throat had been severed with seven surgical razors after his daylong physical torture in an apple orchard. ‘Journalism of Courage’ had little courage to write a word on the brutality. We in Excelsior ran a series of five stories. Since the killing was widely attributed to then Lashkar’s dreaded militant, Munna Janwari, death alone was expected to be the reward for the reporter. As the series progressed, Lashkar’s spokesman Dr Abdullah Gaznavi called me on phone and wished me to record his organisation’s statement on the killing.

Surprisingly again, it was the reverse of our apprehensions. With none among the politicians sending a word of condemnation, Gaznavi strongly condemned the killing, disowned it on behalf of Lashkar-e-Tayyiba and stressed on the need of constituting a Special Investigation Team, comprising Hurriyat leaders, Bar Association and Kashmiri intellectuals.

As a mature and immaculate journalist, Mr Rohmetra knew the beauty of balancing things. He provided every support and encouragement to make Police, security forces and other state actors accountable for each and every atrocity. As previously reported, this began with our campaign to wind up Kashmir’s first counterinsurgent militia, Khwaja Commandoes, in January 1996. I did not relent until Governor’s Advisor Home, Mr Saklani, announced disbanding of the guerrilla group that had begun to ferociously eliminate civilians.

I remember, I was the only journalist in Srinagar to report that notorious Ikhwani Papa Kishtwari’s arranged gathering of 800 men was actually a group of labourers and employees of Joinery Mill Pampore, all forced to form audience of the counterinsurgent’s first (Lok Sabha) election rally near Bun Hall School in February 1996. Papa’s men came to my room at the protected MLAs Hostel with their note of protest but failed to cause any harm.

Resting on Mr Rohmetra, I was, yet again, the only journalist who reported that National Conference’s candidate Mohammad Akbar Lone was the real winner in Sumbal Sonawari in Assembly elections of October 1996 but Dr Farooq Abdullah was forced by Army and other agencies to surrender that particular seat to the Ikhwan founder Kukka Parray. Later, it was sequel to an Excelsior story that forced Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah to visit the house of a poor fisherman’s wife, Bakhti, who had been brutally killed by the Ikhwanis on her compound at Laharwalpora, Bandipore.

Farooq ordered a judicial probe and got all the gunmen involved in Bakhti’s killing arrested. She had died at a Srinagar hospital, three days after the gunmen had smashed her head with a stone, merely on praying for “justice” to the gun-totting extortionists.

Perhaps the more challenging situation emerged when a Major killed a young bridegroom at Tujjar Sharief village. Even as almost entire media in Srinagar either ignored the killing fully or just underplayed it, we drove all the way to the dusty village in Sopore. Next day, Excelsior carried the widowed young bride’s picture on the top of its front page with a detailed account of how the Army unit had lifted 20-year-old Tahir Makhdoomi on the first night after his wedding and blown him into pieces in a bomb blast in a nearby jungle. Mr Rohmetra was so much moved that he placed it as the banner lead, alongside the 19-year-old bride’s photograph, and called me in the morning only to inform me that he had sanctioned reward of two annual increments for me besides a cash prize of Rs 1500 for our photographer. Next day, Chief Minister Mufti Sayeed rushed all the way to Tujjar with his consolation for the family.

Mr Rohmetra’s support was invaluable, to say the least, on several other occasions. It was my incisive story on the human rights activist and lawyer Jaleel Andrabi’s killing by a unit of Sector-12 of Rashtriya Rifles that ruffled feathers at Geneva. I was told how then Prime Minister of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto, had carried a copy of the Excelsior story, with my byline, and read it out at the UNHC session to make her case against New Delhi. It was credible for the fact that Excelsior was neither a mouthpiece for militants nor part of Pakistan’s propaganda machinery. I feel indebted to the head of the SIT and then SSP Srinagar, S K Mishra, who is now an additional DGP, who shared the findings exclusively with me.  

We in Srinagar entered into a bitter confrontation with Army in 1997. “They can’t take everything for granted. Let’s teach them a lesson”, Mr Rohmetra said when he came to know that a unit of 20-Grenadiers had swooped on my house in Budgam without any reason, tortured my brothers severely and left them half-dead. He kept the front page at my disposal till the crisis was resolved by a group of Srinagar-based mediapersons.

Mr Rohmetra was firmly on my back when a DIG of BSF threatened to kill me on exposing a fake encounter in Gogjibagh area of Srinagar in 2003. Buoyed by support from the media fraternity in Srinagar, which remained firmly in solidarity with me, Mr Rohmetra took up the matter with then NDA Government’s Home Minister, L K Advani, and got the officer transferred from Kashmir within five or six days. “DIG BSF threatens to kill Excelsior scribe” is the story in archives of the Kashmir conflict. We identified the officer and his cellphone number alongwith full text of his threats.

Previously, when I got the honour of breaking the Kargil war for the world in my lead story, published in Excelsior on May 12th 1999, four days before others began working on it, Mr Rohmetra called me from Hague to shower his praise and greetings. He would never hide his liking of a piece, unlike many of the editors. 

He was never a tough task master. “Fayyaz Sahab, is there any story?” he would ask, daily. “Sir, nothing significant”, I would reply when there was really none or even when I was in leisure mode or busy with something different. “Don’t worry. Take rest and enjoy”, he would say affectionately. For 14 years of my professional relationship with him and three more years of purely personal association, I never found him disappointed, angry, arrogant, malicious or vindictive even for the worst of his ill-wishers. “They have a contribution in shaping my career. Their tirade took me up from a modest beginning. I am indebted to them all”, he told me once.

After I shifted to Early Times in 2009, Mr Rohmetra’s affection and acknowledgment of my reporting and analyses increased more. I maintained my relationship with him and other members of his family and organisation and continued to inquire about his health and happenings. Still, it was he who would call me, before I could, almost every day and would discuss politics, development, transformation and whatever dominated the media.

His last call came a couple of days before I left for Poonch to attend a cultural conference on July 1st. I tried his number, as also some others, but due to extremely bad signals almost all the attempts in Poonch failed. A night after my return I picked up my phone to call Mr Rohmetra. Suddenly, it rang up from a friend----only to inform that his innings was over.

The funeral pyre at Shastri Nagar cremation grounds was just a retake of my father’s burial in November 2005. “Work is worship”, both taught me. The day Mr Rohmetra’s father expired and I called him, an hour after the cremation, to express my condolences and inform that I would be flying to Jammu next day, he said: “No need to come here. The cremation is over and I am back in my office. This is the best tribute to our parents. Is there any story?”

[Concluded]

END

7 officials attached in Health recruitment scam

CMO had appointed Dental Surgeon, another official wife, others

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, July 9: On the recommendations of a departmental inquiry, Government has attached seven officials of the Department of Health Services Kashmir on account of their alleged involvement in a recruitment scandal spread over 4 districts in south Kashmir.

Official sources revealed to Early Times that in the face of a deluge of complaints, Government had assigned a thorough inquiry to a team of officials, headed by Special Secretary Health & Medical Education Syed Iftikhar-ul-Hassan Bari, to investigate and identify the officials who had got hundreds of youth appointed on fake orders. During the process of the inquiry, it surfaced that almost all the officials involved in the deal, as also the beneficiaries of the fraudulent process, were residents of the South Kashmir districts of Anantnag, Pulwama and Shopian.

The team recommended that all the seven officials be removed from their places of posting and attached to Directorate of Health Services, Kashmir. The officers who have been identified and attached include Dr A R Matoo (in-charge Dy CMO Anantnag), Dr Nazir Ahmad Hakeem [Dy Director (Schemes], Dr Altaf Beigh, CMO, Kulgam, Dr. G. M. Shaksaz,Medical Superintendent, JLNM Hospital, Srinagar, Dr. Bashir Ahmed Najar, BMO,Larnoo, Dr. Gowhar Abbas, BMO, Mattan and Dr. Iqbal Bichoo who is presently attached in the office of CMO, Anantnag.

Names of other junior officials involved in the affairs have been sent to Director Health Services,Kashmir, for similar necessary action by the Committee. Department of Health Services had received various complaints with regard to fake appointments made in District Anantnag over the years prior to year 2009. These complaints were examined by the Director Health Services, Kashmir, through a Committee constituted by him. The Committee after verification of such complaints submitted a preliminary factfinding report which prima-facie established large number of fake appointments made by certain officers/officials.

 In view of the findings of the Committee, the Government ordered a detailed in-depth enquiry in the matter by a team headed by Special Secretary to Government Health & Medical Education Department. The Committee found seven senior officers involved in making such fake appointments.

Names of other junior officials involved in the affairs have been sent to Director Health Services, Kashmir, for similar necessary action by the Committee.

Furthermore, the Director Health Services, Kashmir has been asked to enquire into all such complaints in the matter of other districts as well and submit a report to the Government at the earliest.

Meanwhile, Minister for Health, Mr. Sham Lal Sharma has said that stern action will betaken against all the erring officers/officials and the beneficiaries of the fake appointments after the detailed enquiry into all such complaints.

END

Monday, July 9, 2012


SD Rohmetra: Embodiment of all virtues

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

My association with Daily Excelsior and its superhuman founder-editor Mr S D Rohmetra was dramatic. Six hours after I quit another Jammu-based daily in the third week of June 1995, I learned from my sources in the establishment that Lt Gen (Rtd) Mehmood Ahmad Zaki had resigned as Advisor (incharge Home and Security) to Governor. Some ‘serious differences’ with Raj Bhawan, I was told, were the reason. Holding charge of over a dozen key portfolios, an Advisor to Governor was worth a dozen of today’s Cabinet Ministers. As I was sure this scoop was exclusively with me, I decided to share it with the editor I had heard of but never met, seen or spoken to.

I was able to find a copy of Excelsior from a heap of newspapers on my bookracks. Now in possession of his telephone number, I got the editor through his telephone operator in my first attempt. It didn’t take him a second to recollect that I was working with his key competitor in Jammu.  I felt rewarded when he said that he had been reading my stories. I hastened to clarify that I had resigned. Then I revealed that I had a very important news for him--- Gen Zaki’s resignation. I was surprised to learn that he had already got it. Nevertheless, he told me candidly that he was not aware of the reason behind Zaki’s resignation which he got from me. “But, I hope you are not sharing it with others”, he said. “Not at all Sir”, I retorted to his satisfaction. He asked me to wait for his call at 3.00 p.m. next day.

It was at 3.00 p.m. dot that Mr Rohmetra called me from his office. “I am happy to see that you have not shared that news with anybody” he said of the scoop that published in Excelsior with Srinagar dateline perhaps on June 19th or 20th. “Can you join us?” he asked. I had not thought over it as I had no intention of working for Excelsior that dangerously carried the image of a “pro-India, pro-government, pro-Jammu, anti-Pakistan, anti-Hurriyat, anti-militant and anti-Kashmir” publication. I was aware how one of my colleagues had been kidnapped, harassed and physically tortured for beginning to report for Excelsior just a month before. “Sir, I have not thought over it. I need a day to return with my response”, I replied.

After consultation with family and a couple of colleagues, I accepted Mr Rohmetra’s offer next day. It took him just half-an-hour to send me the appointment order on a colleague’s fax with double the salary package I used to take from my previous employer. “This is just a token remuneration. You’ll rise and your salary will rise proportionately. Believe me, sky is the limit”, Mr Rohmetra reassured.

Within a short span of time, I was one among the highest paid newspaper journalists in Srinagar. Excelsior, I learned, enjoyed the distinction of being not only Jammu and Kashmir’s largest circulated daily but also the only newspaper in the state that gave almost all the wage board benefits to each of its 125 employees. That included one full month’s salary as bonus on Deewali, a sizable annual increment besides employer’s share to CF contribution. For nearly 14 years of my working as Srinagar bureau chief, from June 1995 to December 2008, I did not experience a single day’s delay in receiving my salary cheques or those of my staff. But what is more I got was the respect from the organisation besides the editor’s unflinching faith. Within weeks of my association with him, I found him completely the reverse of what he had been projected by a section of mediapersons in Srinagar. Embodiment of all virtues is just a weak phrase to describe his personality.

“Rohmetra has many friends and foes. Excelsior has none”, said the editor when I met him first towards the end of 1995 in Jammu. With that, he made it clear that I was free to write in favour of or against anyone.

Months later, Dr Farooq Abdullah addressed a crowded news conference at his Gupkar Road residence to announce that his National Conference (NC) had decided to contest the Assembly elections of October-November 1996. He sounded an outraged complainant. He read out a lengthy statement, explaining why NC would participate in the elections. As he concluded and was about to invite questions, he stopped. “Who of you is the correspondent of Excelsior?” asked he. I from his back responded and identified myself.

“You have reported that at my closed-door meeting with the American ambassador (Frank Wisner) at Maulvi Iftikhar’s home, I have objected to the idea of creating a separate Directorate of Tourism for Jammu. I have never done it. As I feel it could harm our prospects in Jammu, I sent a clarification to your editor but he did not publish it. He said it should come only through his Srinagar correspondent. And, can I know your source?” Farooq inquired amid pin-drop silence.

On my part, I clarified that it was a Jammu datelined item and I had no knowledge of its author or source. But, it was the first occasion when I noticed that only to keep my dignity, Mr Rohmetra had refused to take the clarification directly even from an old friend in politics. Amid a huge jostling in mediapersons, Governor K V Krishna Rao gave me his last interview as head of the government and Farooq granted me the honour of taking his first interview as Chief Minister. Then I realized the importance of being S D Rohmetra.

It was in the spring of 1997 that Farooq got his bosom friend Mohammad Yousuf Khan appointed as Chairman of J&K Bank. On some issues, the bank’s employees observed a shutdown. The high profile Chairman prevailed upon all newspapers who killed the news of the strike with total blackout. Many of them reported that the call for shutdown had little impact. On visiting several offices and branches in Srinagar Civil Lines, I reported that the shutdown was complete. It was at 11.15 p.m. that Mr Rohmetra called me. I convinced him that the strike was a success and that Mr Khan was only attempting to suppress the facts. He advised me to pick up Khan’s phone and listen to his version. When I made it clear to Mr Khan that we could, in no circumstances, report the strike from his lens, he asserted that his version was very important and relevant. Without changing a word from the main story, I carried Khan’s version verbatim in a box. Inspite of intimate relationship between Mr Rohmetra and Mr Khan, I enjoyed complete freedom in my reporting.

A rare test to Excelsior’s credibility came when almost all regional and national newspapers reported that the ace counterinsurgent and Muslim Mujahideen chief Azad Nabi had been kidnapped by militants and his dead body had been recovered from the vicinity of a brick kiln in Achhabal. My previous daily went a step farther and reported that Azad’s body was buried in his ancestral graveyard and many of his supporters shouted slogans at the funeral at Shihlipora village. I reported that he had simply gone underground and was expected to surface anytime. Next day, Mr Rohmetra asked me if I was fairly sure of Azad being alive. Same day, Azad surfaced. Though we had never met, Azad called me early that morning and said:“I salute the precision of Excelsior’s reporting”. It was a couple of years before he was actually gunned down.   

Upon my joining Excelsior, I had made clear to Mr Rohmetra that I could not use “terrorists or mercenaries” for militants despite my being strongly committed to non-violence. Almost all the dailies in Srinagar used to call the foreign militants as “mehman mujahideen” or “guest militants”. Excelsior would call them “foreign mercenaries”.

“Sir, I have neither invited them nor seen them coming in from Afghanistan and taking money from Pakistan for their activities in Kashmir. So, as a journalist I will call them only foreign militants”, I told the editor and he agreed. Within days, it was for the first time that this hardcore nationalist and patriotic daily accommodated press conferences of Hurriyat as well as gun-totting militants besides exclusive interviews with the separatist stalwarts like Syed Ali Shah Geelani and then beardless Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, who was plush with his first foreign visit (to Casablanca). However, its editorial remained unchanged and critical of the forces promoting terror, violence and suppression of the peoples’ voices. In our reporting, we ripped Police and security forces, alongside militants and counterinsurgents, on every human rights abuse but the editorial maintained a hardcore nationalist like.

In January 1996, it was exclusively due to our campaign in Excelsior that Governor’s Advisor Home, Mr Saklani, ordered demobilization of Kashmir’s first counterinsurgent militia, “Khwaja Commandoes”. Mr Rohmetra did not edit a single word from my pathetic account of how the Khwaja Commandoes cadres of one, Ghulam Nabi Rattanpuri (not his real name), had mercilessly gunned down two innocent civilians in close vicinity of the CPI State Secretary Abdul Rehman Tukroo’s village in Shopian area.

[To be continued….] This piece of tribute will be also in Daily Excelsior of July 9th, 2012. Website www.dailyexcelsior.com

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