BANANA REPUBLIC OF JAMMU & KASHMIR (2)

Govt official getting ‘best reporter’ award on all I-Days, R-Days in Kupwara

Works openly for Radio Kashmir, Urdu daily, news agency; Makes mockery of Service Conduct Rules, gets salary from Cultural Academy

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Jul 7: Brushing brazen violations of Service Conduct Rules of the government employees under the carpet, Omar Abdullah-led coalition government has been permissive to a number of regular officials masquerading as journalists. This can be admittedly played down as an inheritance of lawlessness. But, what the officers under the Chief Minister’s nose have been doing without an iota of fear since January 2009 is arguably unprecedented. Deputy Commissioner (DC) of Kupwara has been presenting a regular employee of J&K Academy of Art, Culture & Languages as the “Best Reporter” on all Independence Day and Republic Day functions and the current year’s award has been given to the official by Minister incharge Irrigation and PHE, Mr Taj Mohiuddin.

None other than Chief Minister happens to be the President of Cultural Academy. In J&K, Chief Minister is also invariably Minister incharge of General Administration Department (GAD). Functioning literally under the Chief Minister’s nose in Cultural Academy, Cultural Assistant Zahoor Ahmed War S/o Mohammad Sultan War R/o Bonpora, Batergam (Kupwara) was declared as the “Best Journalist” by DC Kupwara, Mohammad Shafi Rather, on the eve of Republic Day in January this year.

Being busy with the “reporting” of the “shutdown against the Indian occupation” for a vernacular daily and a local news agency in Srinagar on January 26^th, War was not present in Kupwara. Chief Guest and Minister incharge Irrigation & PHE thereupon handed over the award to his brother, Mohammad Yahya War, who runs a PCO in Kupwara.

“How did you declare a regular government official as a journalist and the Best Reporter and helped him receive the award from a Cabinet Minister?” Early Times asked DC Kupwara, Mohammad Shafi Rather. “We have not given him award as the Best Journalist only this year. Zahoor Ahmed War, known as Zahoor Sultan, has been the recipient of this award on all Republic Days and Independence Days since 2009”, DC Kupwara said. He claimed that neither he nor anyone else in Kupwara knew Zahoor Sultan as a government employee.

“He has been every day reading out his news dispatches in Radio Kashmir’s current affairs programme Sheherbeen. He has been simultaneously working for a Srinagar-based news agency. Since last many years, his name has been regularly appearing as Associate Editor in the print line of an Urdu daily. All of treat him as a full-time, bona fide journalist. If he is really an employee of Cultural Academy, Secretary Zaffar Iqbal Manhas owes an explanation for his unauthorized activity”, DC Kupwara argued. He said it was strange that a Class 3 government employee had been regularly interviewing DC and other district officers over political and developmental issues in a typical example of misconduct and criminal impersonation.

Mr Rather added that by virtue of being a “prominent journalist”, Zahoor Sultan had also introduced his father as a contractor and mate. Under the same fear, BDOs in Kupwara and Handwara areas have allotted dozens of community development works to War’s father and brother. DC said that a number of District and Tehsil officers had been reportedly obliging War and his family under fear and threat. “Now that we have learned about his being a government official, we’ll initiate necessary action including an inquiry”, DC Kupwara asserted.

Secretary of Cultural Academy, Zaffar Iqbal Manhas, feigned ignorance about Zahoor Ahmed War’s masquerading as a journalist and working for a newspaper, a news agency and Radio Kashmir. “I never knew about his impersonating as a journalist. He is a permanent employee, Cultural Assistant, with the Academy. Now that you have brought it to my notice, I’ll initiate necessary action under rules”, Manhas told Early Times.

Others in Cultural Academy, however, maintained that Zahoor War’s operating as a journalist and simultaneously drawing monthly salaries regularly from the Academy was “known to one and all”. They insisted that War had been a tutor of the children of Academy officers since 2002 and it were they who had first got him inducted as a sub editor in an Urdu daily and later recruited him as Cultural Assistant with brazen favouritism.

One of the Academy officers revealed that Zahoor War had sent regular daily dispatches to Radio Kashmir’s Sheherbeen programme during a recent three-week-long tour of the Academy staff outside J&K through his cellphone. Each of the dispatches from Delhi and other places read: “Zahoor Sultan, Sheherbeen, Kupwara”.

Director Radio Kashmir Srinagar, Javed Iqbal, said that he would check the information with the head of Current Affairs section. “I have joined recently and I have no knowledge of the government employees operating as daily reporters of Sheherbeen”, he asserted. However, Producer of Sheherbeen, Rukhsana Jabeen, observed that it was the problem of the employer (in this case Cultural Academy) and not of Radio Kashmir, to make these contributors accountable and take cognizance of their unauthorized activity. “We cannot book government employees as news reporters but we can book them for any other programme”, she asserted.

Early Times investigation revealed that nearly eight years ago, Zahoor Ahmed War (B Sc, B Ed) had been engaged as Rehbar-e-Taleem teacher for his village school by Chief Education Officer Kupwara. Even as he managed to take his salary regularly for three years without discharging any duty, a head master later objected to his continued absence. Efforts were made to browbeat him but the headmaster pleaded that fearing government action was more important for him than fearing a fake journalist. War later gave up his job.

Within a short time, he was recruited by his patrons as a Cultural Assistant in Cultural Academy. Using the influence of his media clout, he seldom took his duty seriously. From Sheherbeen, he drew payment cheques in the assumed name of Zahoor Zahid but when another broadcaster of the same name objected, he assumed the name of Zahoor Sultan. While working as an employee with an organisation, headed by Chief Minister, he continuously worked with an Urdu daily and his name appeared in its print line without break since 2005.

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