Separatist groups concerned over political corruption

Anjuman exposes Minister’s BMW, Jamaat says all organs of Govt are corrupt

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Oct 10: Two of the Valley’s prominent religious organizations, who have been espousing the cause of ‘Azadi’ since 1990, have also jumped into the mainstream anti-corruption bandwagon. With many of the political outfits as well as civil society organs calling for a credible inquiry into the serious revelations of political corruption made by two National Conference (NC) activists, Anjuman-e-Shari Shiaan and Jamaat-e-Islami have expressed concern over the menace in Jammu and Kashmir.

Last week, a local news agency circulated an item, which was reportedly based on the email of Anjuman-Shari Shiaan, claiming that one of the Minister’s in Omar Abdullah’s Cabinet had recently received a Rs 50 Lakh BMW car from a company. The high-end luxury vehicle, it claimed, had been gifted to the Minister in lieu of allotment of providing and installing solar lighting community units in several districts of the state. It reported that 2500 units were being installed in each of the districts selected.

The prominent religious organisation, that has been a constituent of the separatist Hurriyat Conference since 1993, has neither followed up the campaign against the Minister nor disowned the email till date. The statement, perhaps unprecedented in the last over two decades, has expressed serious concern over the way Omar Abdullah’s Ministers were “openly practicing corruption” and receiving cash and kind from beneficiaries of the government’s contacts and allotments without any fear of accountability.

If the statement and the news item are correct, it is for the first time that any Minister in Jammu and Kashmir has acquired a Rs 50 Lakh car allegedly as gratification from a beneficiary company. Interestingly, none other than the already beleaguered NC patriarch Dr Farooq Abdullah is the Minister incharge of solar energy in the UPA Government at the Centre. Anjuman has, however, restricted its tirade to only Dr Abdullah’s counterpart in Omar Abdullah government.

With the political analysts noticing the Anjuman tirade against the Minister with keen interest, Jamaat-e-Islami today complained that almost all of the government’s organs had been corrupted by the menace. Strongly pro-Pakistan, Jamaat-e-Islami has also been espousing the cause of ‘Azadi’ and arguing since 1990 that talking about “non-movemental issues” would distract the public attention from the “freedom struggle” and thus harm the Kashmiris’ “political cause”.

In a statement issued to media here today, Jamaat complained that all of the organs of the government that, according to it, included all from Traffic Police to judiciary to law-making and law-enforcing agencies, had been infected by the malaise of corruption. It lamented that ordinary people were badly suffering on account of corruption in J&K. Jamaat called upon intellectuals and “pro-religion youth” to join hands in eliminating the menace of corruption in the state. It said that Almighty had wiped out nations which had alarmingly indulged in the menace of corruption.

Meanwhile, in a statement, ruling National Conference spokesman and MLA, Dr Mustafa Kamal, took exception of the PDP President Mehbooba Mufti’s appeal to Anna Hazare. Mehbooba had urged the anti-corruption icon to also focus his campaign on Jammu and Kashmir where political corruption had assumed menacing proportions. Dr Kamal dismissed Hazare as RSS-backed activist and asserted that there was no room for him in J&K. He said that it were the people of the state, not Hazare, who would eradicate the menace of corruption. It is first time that NC has overtly dismissed Hazare as an RSS man.

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