Delhi’s
premium on treason and separatism goes meteoric in BJP rule
Kashmiri separatists get top government jobs
for their own children through backdoor; Ministerial cars, VVIP treatment,
prize postings, PG seats at will
STATE TIMES REPORT
_________
JAMMU, March 5: Leading
national daily The Times of India has uncovered how Mehbooba Mufti’s PDP-BJP
coalition in Jammu and Kashmir has, in its latest, appointed pro-Pakistan
hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s grandson Anees-ul-Islam as Research Officer
in Sher-e-Kashmir International Conference Centre (SKICC) at a time when the
separatist leader had enforced over four-month-long violent and turbulent
shutdown in the Valley.
Suggestions of quid pro
quo, apparently spread by the beleaguered BJP are wrong at its face because Mr
Geelani continues to be unrelenting in keeping the Valley turbulent and shut.
His audacious inspiration is wooing scores of young boys to join the terror
camp, kill others and get themselves killed. Ideally, Islamabad not New Delhi
should have footed the bills and added comfort to Mr Geelani’s life. That’s
what the neighbouring country has been doing without break since 1990. For now,
it appears that both Islamabad and New Delhi are partners in the joint venture
of taking care of everybody who spits on the idea of India, throws a stone or a
grenade, fires a bullet, raises a banner or shouts a slogan against India and
in favour of Pakistan.
What The Times of India
story has skipped is all the more shocking. The post of Research Officer at SKICC
had been specially created by then Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s close
relative, Shahnawaz Shah, in 2003. In the autumn of 2016, Shahnawaz was elevated
to the rank of Manager when at a senior level between the separatist and the
pseudo-separatist mainstream leaders it was decided to appoint Geelani’s
grandson as Research Officer. It was felt that the pay scale and the grade
given to Mufti’s relative was not commensurate with the ‘taller’ Geelani’s
relative.
Under orders of the top
echelons of PDP-BJP government, Secretary Tourism was forced to upgrade
Research Officer’s pay scale to the pay scale of Tehsildar, BDO, General
Manager DIC and other Kashmir Administrative Service (KAS) post’s pay scale of
Rs 9300—Rs 34,800 with grade pay Rs 4,800. The idea is to elevate him to grade
pay of Rs 6,600 (Deputy Secretary to Government) in the next few years and then
induct him into Technical Quota of KAS. In the following years, he would become
Deputy Commissioner, Director and then rise to the rank of
Commissioner-Secretary and Principal Secretary to Government---all through
backdoor.
Under the plan, MBA was
fixed as essential qualification for Research Officer. It was decided that in violation
of the Cabinet Order of 2010, which makes service in SKICC pensionable, Secretary
Tourism would not refer the vacancy to Public Service Commission (PSC) and
instead conduct the appointment clandestinely through a selection to be made by
a committee of his trusted subordinates and headed by him. To cut down the
number of the candidates, cut-off for shortlisting was raised to 75% marks as
the candidate to be favoured had 76% marks. The “result” was completed on
November 30, 2016 but neither published in any newspaper nor posted on SKICC or
Tourism department’s website. All the high-merit candidates, who had performed
exceptionally well in interview, including a pass-out of SKUAST Jammu who had
84% marks, were dropped and Geelani’s grandson selected.
On the same day i.e.
November 30, 2016, the blue-eyed boy was called to SKICC. Senior officials
facilitated his joining and greeted his family as the mission assigned to them
was accomplished. Thirty-one candidates, many of them having far greater merit,
kept shuttling between their homes and SKICC to learn about the “result”.
“It was on December 25 that
we came to know that some Anees-ul-Islam had joined as Research Officer about a
month back as we all had been kept in the dark”, said a candidate from Handwara
who has 79% marks in MBA. When the dropped candidates failed to get injustice,
one of them emailed a detailed complaint to ACB Srinagar of Central Bureau of
Investigation (CBI). On February 3, he was notified by Google that his mail had
failed in delivery.
If sources privy to the
process are to be believed, Anees-ul-Islam’s CID verification was returned with
“positive” remarks from a top office and did not, like other cases, go to the
field.
The story of granting
extraordinary favours and privileges to the India-bashers in J&K does
neither start nor end here. Previously too, one of this hardcore separatist’s
sons was sent for a Forestry training course for which only the in-service
candidates were entitled. On completion of the course, then Forest Minister of
Dr Farooq Abdullah’s National Conference government, Peerzada Ahmad Shah made a
plan to appoint the separatist leader’s son as “Assistant Director Forest
Protection Force” on adhoc basis. The idea was to ostensibly engage around 155
youths, including the Minister’s own daughter, on temporary basis and
subsequently regularise them against posts of Range Officers and post them as
“incharge DFOs”.
Following its exposure in
The Indian Express, a number of candidates raised protest and knocked at the
doors of J&K High Court. Shortly after this plan failed, same blue-eyed boy
and the top separatist leader’s son was inducted on a better position in
Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Science & Technology (SKUAST).
Another top separatist leader’s brother-in-law was inducted into Technical
Quota of KAS and posted on prize positions as HOD while as his senior are still
six levels lower to him.
Yet another top separatist
leader’s son was granted a contract for supplying computers to the Revenue
Training Institute Srinagar in violation of all rules and procedures. Sometime
later, his failed rivals filed a complaint that the supplier had been allotted
exorbitant rates and he had supplied computers of inferior quality. State
Vigilance Organisation conducted a preliminary verification and found the
charges true. FIR was lodged and the supplier arrested. The case is reportedly
still under investigation.
Another separatist leader’s
wife enjoyed prize postings and promotions, both in NC-Congress coalition and
the PDP-BJP regime.
Top bureaucrats on
condition of anonymity confirm that the separatist leaders have also been
getting prize postings for their relatives besides government contracts and
supply orders, admissions in prestigious schools and colleges with intervention
of government functionaries. At Srinagar airport, officers and security staff
are seen arranging for their boarding cards, business class seats and
hospitality in VIP Lounge with pride. Much has been already written about the
beacon light and hooter-fitted Ministerial cars, escort Geeps and PSOs provided
to the separatist leaders mostly during Vajpayee or Modi government. They even
raise palatial residential and commercial constructions without even bothering
to apply for a building permission.
While the poor Kashmiris
remain engaged with different things from stone pelting to studies, the
separatist’s children and relatively get passports on priority when their
masters in Pakistan allot then a particular quota of MBBS and BDS seats in
different Pakistani medical colleges every year. Government has reports that
the separatists often sell these seats to different clients for anything
between Rs 10 lakh to Rs 30 lakh with fear of action from the government.
The wife of a former
‘Commander-in-Chief’, who is now a separatist leader, works as Public
Prosecutor. A young KAS lady officer married a commander-turned-separatist
activist a few years back for the premium and glamour attached to separatism. A
few years from now, she will be a Deputy Commissioner or Secretary in Home
Department and thus custodian of all the State secrets.
On the pattern adopted in
case of Geelani’s grandson at SKICC, Hizbul Mujahideen and United Jihad Council
chief Syed Salahuddin’s son was a few years back appointed as Manager in
Entrepreneurship Development Institute that was attacked and left devastated in
two fidayeen strikes last year.
Admittedly, in a democratic
country like India, Geelani’s and Salahuddin’s sons cannot be punished for
their relationship to the separatists and militants and they are very much
entitled to everything from government jobs to prize postings. However, the
process becomes fishy and scandalous when it is held clandestinely and
surreptitiously and due right is brazenly denied to meritorious and poor
candidates who repose faith in democracy and legitimacy of the Indian systems
and institutions.
Even in the case of the
latest appointment at SKICC, national security has been brazenly compromised as
the VVIPs who regularly attend meetings and conferences there include Prime
Minister of India, Union Home Minister and heads of security and intelligence
agencies. Chief Minister and top Army, paramilitary, intelligence, security and
Police officers attend Unified Headquarters meetings at SKICC.
Thus the country’s most
sensitive State has been reduced to a ‘Banana Republic’ as the most meritorious
and those identifying themselves with India fail to get even an inferior
government job and keep shuttling between their homes and government offices
till they cross their age bar. Irony is that much of this self-defeating policy
has been introduced, pursued and promoted during the BJP regime. Interestingly
when the party’s firebrand spokespersons are embarrassed on national
television, they invariably say: “You don’t know how much of it we have
withdrawn from the separatists. We can’t disclose it publicly”!
END
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