SSRB changes criteria to favour non-Forestry candidates

Forestry grads being sidelined in recruitment of Foresters, FPF Inspectors

Early Times Report

SRINAGAR, Dec 28: Jammu & Kashmir Government Services Selection Board’s act of changing criteria in favour of non-Forestry candidates has drawn flak from around 500 unemployed Forestry graduates and post-graduates who have threatened to go on fast-unto-death if justice and transparency were compromised in the current process of recruitment of Foresters and Forest Protection Inspectors.

Subordinate Services Recruitment Board has on Monday notified 279 vacancies of Foresters and Inspectors in the state Forest Department and Forest Protection Force (FPF) respectively. In the previous process of recruitment in 2004, SSRB had fixed 40 points for 10+2 and 25 points for B Sc Forestry for the purpose of shortlisting of candidates.  In the Notification No: 08 of 2010 Dated 24-12-2010, Board has reduced weightage of the professional qualification, B Sc Forestry, from 25 to just 10 points. It has surprisingly added these 15 points to the ordinary qualification of 10+2, taking it to 55 from 40.

Without any plausible reason and logic, Board has fixed just 5 points for M Sc Forestry but tilted the balance in favour of non-Forestry ordinary science graduates with addition of 2 points to ordinary B Sc and 3 points to ordinary M Sc. Twenty points have been fixed for viva voce.

“This is clearly a brazen attempt of recruiting non-Forestry under-graduates and graduates against the professionally technical posts of Foresters and FPF Inspectors”, lamented a delegation of over 50 Forestry graduates and post-graduates who knocked at the doors of newspaper offices at Press Enclave here to seek justice. “It means that if you are simply 12^th pass or an ordinary B Sc in medical or non-medical streams, and you have the privilege of being a favourite of influential politicians and bureaucrats, you will be selected and those having B Sc or M Sc in Forestry would be dropped”, simplified one Nisar Ahmed who has been unsuccessfully looking for an ordinary job in the relevant field after completing his M Sc Forestry five years back.

Farooq Ahmed, who has been unemployed after completing his B Sc Forestry in 1998, said: “It’s unfortunate that Forest Minister Altaf Saheb, who is known for his honesty and integrity, has not deviated from the path of his much flayed predecessors---Sofi Mohiuddin, Tariq Hameed Qarra, Qazi Afzal---and disappointed 500 unemployed Forestry graduates and post- graduates”. He said that SSRB and Forest Department at Civil Secretariat had been passing the buck to each other and both were part of a conspiracy to get non-Forestry candidates appointed as Foresters and FPF Inspectors. He complained that State Public Service Commission had already done “great injustice” to the professionally qualified candidates in the current process of recruitment of Assistant Conservators of Forest (ACF) as all ordinary graduates and post-graduates had been declared eligible for the posts being filled up first time in last 27 years.

The delegation pointed out that one Dr Tariq, who had Ph D in Forestry, had been working against a temporary vacancy of Casual Labour since 1998 in State Forest Research Institute (SFRI) for Rs 4,000 a month. Few others having doctorate in Forestry had not been engaged even as daily wagers.

“Why does the Government and its SKUAST increase seats of B Sc Forestry and M Sc Forestry from 6 to 20 but does not allow the professionally trained candidates to become even Foresters? Why does the Government not issue a public interest notification to declare it publicly that B Sc, M Sc or Ph D in Forestry and related subjects was simply wastage of poor man’s money, time and energy?”, asked the delegation of men and women heading towards their age-bar of 37 years.

Yet another Forestry graduate, Tanvir, explained how SSRB officials had been manipulating the shortlisting process by entertaining fake marks certificates of favoured candidates. “They have a sinister system of verifying certificates from BOSE and Universities. They simply seek verification of certificates at a later stage without asking the Boards and Universities to furnish attested copies of full awards of the candidates”, he added. According to him, it was so simple to produce a fake marks certificate of 10+2 with high marks at the shortlisting stage. “Once you are selected and appointed, you produce your original certificates. At that stage officials simply seek confirmation of whether a certificate is fake or genuine. Nobody checks the marks and compares it to those mentioned in fake marks sheets at the shortlisting stage.

While nobody in SSRB responded to phone calls, Minister of Forest, Mian Altaf Ahmed, said that he would take up the matter with Chairman of Services Selection Board to ensure that there was no injustice to the professionally qualified and trained candidates.

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World doesn’t understand the language of stone pelting: Dr Gilani

‘J&K CM is constitutionally bound to facilitate cross-LoC visit of interlocutors’

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Dec 28: London-based Kashmiri human rights activist and constitutional expert, Dr Syed Nazir Gilani, today advised Kashmiri separatist leaders to shun their rigidity and negotiate on the Kashmir problem with the Indian Parliamentarians. He said that the civilized world had not, and would never, under the language of stone pelting that, according to him, had exclusively become the mark of identification of Muslims from Kashmir to Palestine.

Addressing a news conference in the midst of his exhaustive visit to his home state after several years, Secretary General of Jammu & Kashmir Council for Human Rights (JKCHR), Dr Gilani, asserted that violent and anarchic expression of a “genuine cause” had done a disservice to the people of the state. According to him, it was strange and surprising that the Valley’s separatist leaders had been regularly interacting with officials of the Government of India but they had invariably decided not to meet the Indian Parliamentarians and other representatives of this country’s people.

Any rigidity, according to Gilani, would just perpetuate the status qua that was ‘selectively detrimental to the cause and interests of the people of Jammu and Kashmir’. “India is not going to lose anything. New Delhi would conveniently convince the world that it had made a sincere initiative to reach out to the constituency of dissent in Kashmir but the separatist leaders were not amenable to reason, logic and reconciliation”, he added.

Gilani argued that the Indian forces were in J&K according to a mandate given to them in follow up to the “provisional” Instrument of Accession for the purpose of protecting life, honour and property of each citizen while assisting the state Police. He refused to endorse that the Indian troops in J&K were “occupational forces” but asserted that every state subject, living in any territory of the state from Kathua to Kupwara and Gilgit, had the right and responsibility of questioning the size, location and behaviour of the soldiers. He said it was being highlighted from a many quarters that only Muslims were indulging in the anarchic form of stone pelting. “Isn’t it a fact that no Hindu and no Sikh is involved in stone pelting?”, Gilani asked.

Gilani declined to accept that J&K was an integral part of India and emphasized that every single state subject would have a vote in determining the status of this state. He said it was unfortunate that the Valley’s separatist leaders had never presented a non-paper (document of roadmap) and forced the Indian political and intellectual leadership to discuss it across the table.

Dr Gilani said that Chief Minister Omar Abdullah was “constitutionally bound” to facilitate the visit of the Indian interlocutors to all areas of ‘Azad Jammu & Kashmir, Gilgit and Baltistan’.

“Our understanding of the habitat and the people of the state is at variance to the understanding of many others and we have a considered view that bulk of the understanding of the Kashmir case is unreliable and far remote from the jurisprudence of Kashmir case”, he said. “The political opinions that exist in all the three administrations of Jammu & Kashmir, the Government of J&K, the Government of AJK and the Government of Gilgit and Baltistan, have failed  in honouring the trust that these Governments owe to the State Subjects living within the territories defined in article 4 of the J&K Constitution”, Gilani added.

“Hurriyat leadership and other political parties that have spearheaded the agenda….to seek the right of self-determination, need to revisit the wisdom of their 20 year politics and consider seriously their understanding of the Kashmir case”, Gilani asserted.

Founded in 1984, Gilani’s JKCHR is a London and Srinagar-based non-profit organisation that has the distinction of being J&K’s only NGO in special consultative status with the UNO’s Economic and Social Forum. A resident of Naranthal village in Baramulla district, Gilani had crossed the LoC in early 1970s. He later worked as Deputy Direction of Information in ‘Government of Azad Jammu & Kashmir’ before becoming a victim of Gen Zia-ul-Haq’s military regime that forced him to leave Pakistan and live in exile in the UK.

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Sopore Police unearths nexus between militants, stone pelters, Govt employees

‘Militants raise funds in apple town, pay Rs 400/day to each stone pelter on Friday’

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Dec 27: Police in North Kashmir today claimed to have unearthed yet another module of militants, stone pelters and government employees which allegedly played key role in this year’s street clashes and demonstrations in Sopore. Activists detained by Police have revealed how militants of Lashkar-e-Toiba had been raising funds from local traders and making cash payment to the stone pelters at the rate of Rs 400 per day.

Contrary to the belief of a many politicians from New Delhi to Srinagar, including Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, DIG North Kashmir, Munir Khan, today claimed that there was a working nexus between militants and stone pelters in Sopore area of Kashmir valley. While addressing a news conference, alongwith SP Sopore Altaf Khan, and Commanding Officer of CRPF 179 Bn, V K Singh, DIG Munir Khan said that in his area of operations as many as 26 militants, including five local cadres, had been killed by Police and security forces during current year. He said that 12 more militants, including a foreigner, had been arrested.

DIG said that one Maruti car and a motorcycle, used in a militant attack on MLA Sopore Haji Mohammad Ashraf Ganai’s house at Dangarpora Dooru, had been seized. Arms and ammunition recovered in different operations this year and put at an exhibition on the occasion included 29 AK rifles and eight pistols. He said that a number of detained militants and operatives had been detained under Public Safety Act and other laws.

According to DIG Khan, there was an active network of 21 militants and militant operatives with equal number of women activists that had organized mass demonstrations and street attacks on Police and security forces earlier this year. He said that during investigation, Police learned that some government employees, and even the Imam of a Jamia Masjid at Amargarh, had been associated with the network.

DIG Khan claimed that Police achieved a breakthrough in the arrest of one Firdaus Ahmed Sheikh of Jalalabad, Sopore, who turned out to be the kingpin of the gang of stone pelters. He said that during sustained questioning, Firdaus disclosed that he had liaison with two Pakistani militants, namely Abdullah Uni of Lashkar-e-Toiba and Kaleemullah of Harkat-ul-Mujahideen. Later Police arrested two more guerrilla members of the network, namely Qayoom Bajad and Munshi Khan, who revealed that they had been tasked with providing safe passage of militants from Sopore to Rajouri.

DIG said that during sustained questioning of the detained operatives, Police learned that some Hurriyat activists and a number of government employees were also in the loop. He said that Police subsequently conducted a raid one the house of one Mohammad Amin Dar at Badami Bagh, Sopore, and recovered one Pistol, two Thuraya Satellite Phones, one grenade, one Tata Indicom cellphone set, one AK 47 rifle, two combat uniforms, one composer, three pouches, 11 UBGL shells and one UBGL.

During investigation, one Abdul Lateef Lone R/O Radbugh, Kupwara, working as Imam of Jamia Masjid Amargarh, Sopore was arrested and subjected to prosecution. Lone was claimed to have revealed that militants through local Hurriyat (G) cadres used to collect donations by way of extortion from fruit dealers and sawmill owners and later paid Rs 400/day to stone pelters on every Friday.  

Hurriyat cadres allegedly collecting money for stone pelters were identified as Ghulam Mohammad Tantray R/o Behrampora, currently detained under PSA, Ghulam Hassan Mir @ Chotta Geelani R/o Duroo, currently absconding, Mohammad Rustum R/o Amargarh, Sopore detained under PSA, Gani Guroo R/o Chankhan (Absconding), Ashraf Malik R/o Batpora  (Government Employee of Education Department) currently in custody  and Bashir Ahmad Tali R/o Chankhan, Sopore, (employee of CAPD, currently absconding).

DIG said that some members of the network, including the most wanted Ghulam Hassan Mir of Dooru alias ‘Chhotta Geelani”, were still at large but Police were conducting raids and operations to effect their arrest. He, however, did not reveal if Drawing and Disbursing Officers (DDOs) of the government employees involved in stone pelting had been asked to initiate any action or withhold their monthly salaries.

Khan said that a woman, namely Raja Begum, whose house had perished in a recent gunbattle in Sopore, was among a group of 21 females who had been actively working for the network of militants and stone pelters. He claimed that with the arrest of a number of militants and stone pelters, besides their facility providers, Police and security forces had pre-empted plans of a Fidayeen strike in Sopore.

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Moderate separatists call Kashmir ‘Pakistan’s jugular vein’

Mirwaiz: ‘Pakistan incomplete without J&K’s separation from India’

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Dec 25: That New Delhi’s entire investment on encouraging “moderate separatists” in Kashmir has gone down the drain became unmistakably clear today when two of the most influential leaders called Jammu & Kashmir “Pakistan’s jugular vein” and asserted that Pakistan was incomplete without Kashmir’s separation from India.

‘Azad Kashmir Unit’ of Anjuman-e-Sharyee Shia’an, headed by Budgam-based Shia cleric and separatist politician Aga Syed Hassan Al-Moosavi, today organized a conference in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad on “The Kashmir dispute and Quad-e-Azam (Mohammad Ali Jennah)”. While addressing the conference from Srinagar on telephone, Chairman of so-called “moderate faction” of the Hurriyat Conference, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, paid rich tributes to the founder of Pakistan, Mr Jennah, and endorsed his ideology that J&K was Pakistan’s “jugular vein”. He referred to Jennah’s refrain that Pakistan was incomplete without Kashmir’s separation from India and its accession to the Islamic Republic.

Mirwaiz described Jennah a great political visionary and said that creation of a theocratic state in the name of Islamic Republic of Pakistan was his greatest achievement. He said that both Pakistan as well as Kashmir were “incomplete” until the Kashmiris were granted right of self-determination. He asserted that the separatist struggle would reach its “logical end” as hundreds of thousands of people in the “occupied land” had laid down their lives and offered all other sacrifices to see Kashmir separated from India.

In his telephonically delivered speech, Aga Syed Hassan too echoed Mirwaiz Umar’s sentiments and emphasized that India’s claim on permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) should be essentially related to its “barbaric role in the occupied territories of Jammu & Kashmir”. He too described Kashmir as “Pakistan’s jugular vein” and lamented that “forcible Indian occupation” should be terminated with mobilization of the public opinion and other means sooner than later.

Aga stressed on implementation of the UN resolutions of 1948-49 and expressed his gratitude to the successive governments in Pakistan for providing all possible support to the Kashmiris who, according to him, were “engaged in their freedom struggle”.

Mirwaiz and Aga respectively are spiritual and political leaders of the majority Sunni Muslim and the minority Shia Muslim communities in Kashmir valley. Mirwaiz was just a student at school when his father and founder of pro-Pakistan Awami Action Committee, Mirwaiz Maulvi Mohammad Farooq, was assassinated, allegedly by militants of a formidable pro-Pakistan guerilla group, on May 21, 1990. Junior Mirwaiz later formed an umbrella of most of the Valley’s separatist organizations, under the banner of Hurriyat Conference in 1993. He served as its Chairman twice before it split in 2003.

Since 1947, Mirwaiz legacy had the distinction of being the most credible pro-Pakistan constituency in Kashmir. However, in 1977, Mirwaiz Farooq became part of Morarji Desai-led Janata Party and created a new history by inviting him to Mirwaiz Manzil in downtown Srinagar during the thick of campaigning for Assembly elections. The alliance, however, received a dressing down at the hustings as JP could bag not more than two segments in entire Kashmir valley. Mirwaiz-supported Abdul Rasheed Kabuli defeated NC’s candidate in Iddgah constituency in Srinagar and JP’s stalwart, Abdul Gani Lone, made his victory from Handwara.

Aga Syed Hassan was also JP’s candidate in the Assembly elections of 1977 in Budgam but NC’s Syed Ghulam Hussain Geelani defeated him with a thick margin of votes. Later, in 1987, Mirwaiz again became part of the newfound alliance of NC and Congress when he joined hands with Dr Farooq Abdullah and then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in lieu of two assured seats to his AAC in Srinagar city. Consequently, NC and Congress helped victory of Mirwaiz Farooq’s nominees, Pir Mohammad Shafi and Mohammad Shafi Khan, who served as MLAs in J&K Legislative Assembly for three years of NC-Congress coalition government.

In sharp contrast to so-called hardliners, like Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Government of India has placed both the separatist leaders, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Aga Syed Hassan, in the highest Z-plus category of security. Over a hundred men of J&K Police have been deployed on their personal protection, house protection and escort duty. While projecting the duo as “neutralizers of hardliners”, officials from Srinagar to New Delhi have also provided to the two separatist leaders almost all privileges and facilities enjoyed by Ministers of the rank of Cabinet.

These state-sponsored facilities include bullet-proof cars, personal security officers, static house-guards, escort personnel, frisking personnel of Security Wing and wireless operators. Government has been spending over Rs 2.00 Cr annually on these facilities provided to the two “moderate separatists”.

Though both the separatist leaders had adopted a “soft line” and they had been talking of only “Azadi”, they have now left behind all hardliners, including Geelani, in toeing a hawkish policy in favour of Pakistan and against the country proving them all mundane privileges and comforts. Successive governments, both NDA and UPA, in New Delhi, have been supporting and encouraging these so-called moderates in Kashmir while facing hard questions and criticism from the Indian taxpayers.

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KU Prof booked for ‘vulgarity’ after receiving award from President Patil

It’s academic terrorism to please hardline separatists: Shaad Ramzan

It’s genuine Police action against promoters of obscenity: SP, DIG

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Dec 23: Days after initiating criminal action against a College teacher for setting ‘objectionable’ question paper, Srinagar Police have booked a senior Professor on the charges of ‘promoting vulgarity’ among the young examinees in Kashmir valley. The high profile academic has received prestigious Sahitya Academy award for his literary works from President Pratibha Patil in Goa in August and has been associated with UPSC, UGC, NBTI, CIIL, Sahitya Academy and J&K PSC as an advisor, jury and expert of Kashmiri language and literature in the last over 15 years.

SP Hazratbal, Maqsood-uz-Zamaan, and DIG Central Kashmir, Abdul Gani Mir, maintained that Prof Shaad Ramzan, a Professor and former Head of Post-graduate Department of Kashmiri Language and Literature at the University of Kashmir, has been booked by Police on December 21^st on the charge of ‘promoting vulgarity among the young Kashmiri examinees of undergraduate level’. They told Early Times that Dr Shaad Ramzan had set a question paper for students of B.A. First Year in which students of Kashmiri subject had been asked to translate “an objectionable passage” from English to Kashmiri.

SP and DIG said that Police Station Nageen, Hazratbal, had registered case FIR No: 89 of 2010 under sections 294, 292 and 34 against the identified accused as also others who would be found involved in the ‘criminal act’ during the course of investigation. They said that the accused KU teacher would be arrested and prosecuted like a teacher of Gandhi Memorial College, Noor Mohammad Bhat, who had been booked under Unlawful Activities Act earlier this month and has been languishing in Srinagar Central Jail since last fortnight. Two judicial magistrates have dismissed Bhat’s bail application.

Bhat had been booked and arrested by men of Police Station Nageen, Hazratbal, after mediapersons in Srinagar reported that he had set a question paper and asked the examinees to reply whether Kashmir’s stone pelters were “real heroes”. The text suggested that the Indian State had been committing “genocide” in the Valley.

SP Hazratbal elaborated that during investigating Bhat’s crime, Police learned that Prof Shaad Ramzan too had set “an objectionable” question paper, asking the young examinees to translate an ‘explicitly vulgar’ biological passage from English to Kashmiri. He asserted that Police took a suo motto action and insisted that there were no complainants in the second case.

The passage that Ramzan asked students to translate reads: “From the ancient times, women have been concerned about the shape and size of their breasts. Breast development is the vital part of reproduction in human females. Unlike other mammals, however, human females are the only ones who develop full breasts long before they are needed to nurse their offspring.”

Both SP Zamaan as well as DIG Mir justified the Police action with the argument that “promoting vulgarity among the young examinees” could not be tolerated at any cost. They asserted that protection of society and the social value system was a duty of Police and other law enforcement agencies everywhere in the world. “It was not a question paper of anatomy for MBBS students of a Medical College. It was a language paper for which the teacher could have easily selected a passage from any other subject. Why was he constrained to only pick up a text from biology that generated concern among the society in October?”, SP Hazratbal asked.

He admitted that the passage selected would not be ‘vulgar’ for students of higher classes or even the young students living in different cultures in other states and countries. He, however, asserted that translation of the biological text in Kashmiri language was “offending” even for the students hailing from culturally over-exposed families.

Defending himself firmly, Prof Shaad Ramzan asserted that there was “nothing objectionable” in the text he claimed to have selected from a prescribed textbook of Unani Medicine. He dismissed registration of FIR against him as “academic terrorism” and alleged that Police had resorted to the action “only to appease hardline separatists”. He said that Police had been finding itself at the receiving end since the day of arresting a College teacher as certain political circles had blown it over as interference in academic activity. “They were desperately looking for a neutralizer that could silence the separatists”, Prof Ramzan said.

Shaad Ramzan pointed out that his question paper had been taken by the examinees without any objection and the examination had been conducted as long ago as on October 25^th. He pleaded that if there was still anything objectionable, that would have been addressed by the University authorities in due course of time. He said that a couple of days after the day of examination, some of his “professional rivals” had approached some hardline politicians and forced them to issue a statement in which he had been publicly denigrated as an “Indian agent”.

He argued that in case his controversial passage was described as “objectionable”, Police would have to also book senior Ministers, bureaucrats, officials and many other academics for allowing “hundreds of objectionable texts of prose and poetry” that, according to him, existed in syllabi of schools, colleges and universities in J&K. He pointed out to “more explicit references to breasts” in the poetry of legendary Kashmiri poets, including Mehmood Gami, Rasool Mir and Maqbool Kralwari.

Working as a Professor of Kashmiri language and literature for the last about 25 years, Dr Shad Ramzan functioned as Head of Department (Kashmiri) at University of Kashmir until October this year. Author of as many as 20 books on Kashmir’s literature and culture, he received the country’s top most literary award from Sahitya Academy for his publication “Anhaar te Akas”, Kashmiri translation of short stories in different Indian languages. He was honoured on behalf of Sahitya Academy by President of India, Pratibha Patil, in Goa in August this year.

Shad has functioned as an advisor, jury and subject expert of Kashmiri for the last over 15 years with Sahitya Academy, Central Institute of Indian Languages run by Ministry of Human Resources Development, University Grants Commission, Union Public Service Commission, J&K State Public Service Commission and National Book Trust of India.

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Bureaucracy subverting selection process of Director SKIMS

Post advertised 3 years after High Court order; No Selection Committee constituted; CS calls CVs of applicants to Civil Secretariat

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Dec 22: With blatant disregard to directions of Jammu & Kashmir High Court as well as decision of the hospital Governing Body, headed by Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, bureaucracy has begun to interfere with the process of selection of the regular Director for Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS). Even as the top post has been finally advertised with delay of over three years and 13 candidates have submitted their applications, all of their documents and CVs have been forwarded by the autonomous hospital to the Chief Secretary’s office in Civil Secretariat without properly constituting a Selection Committee.

Previous PDP-Congress coalition government, headed by Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, had lost little time in removing Prof Meraj-ud-din as Director of SKIMS on account of his “deep connections” to Dr Farooq Abdullah, his family and the National Conference. Beneficiary of the change of guard was obviously a senior Congress leader’s son-in-law and HoD Cardiology, Dr Sheikh Jalal-ud-din. Mufti-led government started the process in 2004 with constitution of a Selection Committee. Headed by then CS, S S Bloeria, the Selection Committee had bureaucrats Vijay Baqaya and Sonali Kumar, besides then Secretary General Administration Department, as its official members.

Directors of AIIMS, New Delhi, and PGI, Chandigarh, were also associated as its members but, fearing the process as just a fixed match, neither of them participated in any meetings. Government later arranged involvement of eminent physician and former Principal of Government Medical College (GMC), Srinagar, Dr Syed Naseer Ahmed Shah. As widely expected, Dr Jalal was ‘selected’ and appointed as Director SKIMS.

One of the unsuccessful candidates, Dr Mohammad Ashraf Bhat, challenged Dr Jalal’s selection in J&K High Court. In 2007, Mr Justice Hakeem Imtiyaz Hussain quashed Dr Jalal’s appointment with the observation that Chief Minister Mufti had acted as head of the government, not as head of the legitimate appointing authority (Governing Body) and picked up his favourite from the middle of the panel without seeking necessary confirmation from the Governing Body. Court ordered immediate removal of Dr Jalal and issued orders that a suitable incumbent be appointed as interim Director parallel to a fresh process of selection.

An appeal against Single Bench’s judgment was dismissed by a Division Bench which upheld Justice Imtiyaz Hussain’s orders. Ghjulam Nabi Azad-led coalition government appointed HOD Endocrinology, Dr Abdul Hameed Zargar, as the interim Director. However, neither Azad nor his successor, Governor N N Vohra, advertised the post till Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, as head of Governing Body, directed the authorities to start a fresh selection process in accordance with SKIMS appointment rules and orders of the High Court in April 2010.

After a great deal of procrastination, SKIMS issued Notification No: 2 of 2010 on 4-8-2010, seeking applications from the eligible candidates.

Thirteen candidates submitted their applications and CVs till the last date on 31-10-2010. They included incumbent interim Director, Dr Abdul Hameed Zargar, who is otherwise due to reach superannuation in April 2011, Dean of SKIMS Dr Mohammad Ashraf Darzi, Medical Superintendent and HoD Hospital Administration Dr Syed Amin Tabish, HOD Anesthesiology, Dr Shagufta Qazi, HOD Cardiology Dr Khursheed Iqbal, HOD Gastroenterology Dr Shaukat Ali Zargar, HOD CVTS Dr Abdul Gani Ahangar, Professor of Pediatrics Dr Altaf Shera, HOD Social and Preventive Medicine at GMC Srinagar Dr Muneer Masoodi, former Principal of GMC Srinagar Dr Mushtaq Shah, former HOD Surgery at GMC Srinagar Dr Muneer Khan, Principal GMC Srinagar Dr Shahida Mir and Principal SKIMS Medical College Bemina Dr Mushtaq Ahmed.

Implementing the Court orders in breach, authorities avoided to constitute the Selection Committee. Informed sources said that when head of the Governing Body and Chief Minister desired to know about the progress, he was informed on 21-10-2010 that only two candidates had come forward with their applications. Nobody in the meeting pointed out that the last date was still ten days away. Consequently, instructions were issued to instead appoint a “Search Committee”.

Well placed authoritative sources at SKIMS revealed to Early Times that the selection process was underway without constitution of any Selection Committee. They revealed that a group of influential bureaucrats, who have been overtly and covertly supporting a particular candidate, prevailed upon Chief Secretary S S Kapur whose office, in the first week of December 2010, forced Joint Director, Rafeeq Ahmed Mir, to forward applications and CVs of all the 13 candidates to the Civil Secretariat in Jammu.

“Chief Secretary and other bureaucrats/ Ministers have absolutely no authority or intervention in the selection process. The only competent authority is the SKIMS Governing Body that is headed by Chief Minister of the state”, explained an official source. He insisted that certain bureaucrats and officials were trying to mislead Chief Minister so as to help their favourite. He said that under the rules mentioned in the notification, the Selection Committee was supposed to shortlist the most meritorious candidates as per their academic qualification besides their technical, research and practical administrative experience.

“When, there is no Selection Committee, who will conduct interaction with the shortlisted candidates?” asked a couple of officials at SKIMS. They said it was first time that the custodian of the candidates’ applications and CVs had given the same in the unjustified custody of the bureaucrats in Civil Secretariat who have no authority or intervention under rules of appointment.

While JD Administration at SKIMS, Rafeeq Ahmed Mir, was not reachable, sources in his office confirmed that the applications and CVs had been given into custody of Chief Secretary’s office. According to them, Chief Minister and Head of Governing Body, Omar Abdullah, was being misled “only to arrange undue favour to one of the candidates”.

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100 killings in first 100 days, no killing in next 100 days

So, where does the fault lie?

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Dec 21: For a change, rhymes have replaced the slogans in Kashmir. “khoon ka badla June mein lenge” (We’ll take revenge of all killings in June next) and “bootan sale, bab gau fail” (Enjoy the grand sale of shoes as the father has failed at last). This is the fun that keeps this valley of bloodletting alive for decades and centuries of unbroken jinx.

First one describes the despondency that has befallen droves of Kashmir’s stone-pelters who had discovered the battlefield of advantage on the streets in Srinagar this summer. It also denotes desperation among the urban e-Jihadis who had found free-to-all broadcast stations in YouTube and FaceBook. There’s of course a promise of June next but who doesn’t know it would have been January had the blood been ‘danwari’ or ‘kanwari’ in the Kashmiri or Urdu glossary.

The next rhyme indicates an uncanny sense of celebration among the sidewalk vendors who starved for 120 days of shutdown but are now back to a brisk business. Unmistakably ‘father’ in the stanza means the man whose calls of shutdown froze Valley all through the turbulence for five months. Everybody from the great Indian media to bureaucracy called him ‘The Ultimate’. Unlike the poor, diminutive street vendor, leech politicians fattening on the conflict are still in a state of coma. Elections alone can take them out of the slumber but they are far, far away.

The first mortality---rightfully put in the list of the ‘Police killings’--- happened in the death of 17-year-old Tufail Matoo on June the 11^th. The last political killing happened at Palhalan when Police and paramilitaries gunned down four civilians---demonstrators, stone pelters, attackers, whatever---on September 6^th. Later, one more of the injured died at a hospital. Next fortnight, 18 civilians and a Police constable died in firing and lynching on September 13^th but the primary subject of mobilization was neither Azadi nor an incident of human rights abuse by the ‘ruthless’ J&K Police or ‘Indian forces’. It indeed was a controversial act of blasphemy in USA that outraged the religious sentiment in Kashmir.

In an astonishingly sharp contrast to the bloody mayhem for five months across the summer, nobody on the Valley’s streets has died for Kashmir’s Azadi in the last over 100 days. Admittedly, nobody would make the mistake of concluding that peace had returned and the trouble was over for good.

But, what exactly did suddenly bring the thaw? Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s tantrum that Kashmir had ‘only acceded to, not merged into India’ ? Home Minister Chidambaram’s out-of-box confession that Kashmir was a “unique political problem that requires a unique political solution”? Srinagar visit of all-party Parliamentary delegation? Harnessing of a fresh team of three interlocutors who have failed to meet a single leader in the Valley’s separatist camp? Grabbing of nearly entire media attention by Commonwealth Games and 2G scams?

Has the UPA government at the Centre revived the dialogue process with Pakistan and the Hurriyat that the J&K Chief Minister believed had led to the crisis in post-2008 Kashmir? Has the United Jihad Council and Hizbul Mujahideen been engaged in a political process? Has the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) been revoked and the 700,000 troops withdrawn from Kashmir? Or, has acquisition of non-lethal pump action guns and ammunition snatched away the separatists’ advantage of having killings in singles and doubles in all street demonstrations?

Those who justified participation of hundreds of thousands of Kashmiris in elections 18 years after the outbreak of movement with the argument of “sadak, bijli, paani”, are now asserting that the Kashmiris are “simply fatigued” after months of ‘repression from Police”. Earlier, they used to rouse the stone pelters with the epic reference of 1,000 years of war. Could detention of 400-odd youngsters really restore calm in a week’s time? Has Omar overnight removed the “governance deficit” from his government that used to be the staple refrain of many from PDP in Srinagar to the Cabinet Committee on Security in New Delhi?

If none of the above is right, one may be left with the last contention that Bill Clinton’s visit consumed 35 Sikhs in 2000 and BURAQ HUSSAIN Obama’s three-times more in 2010. Faiz had said in the middle of last century: “sheeshoon kaa Maseeha koyee nahi, kyon aas lagaye bethe hau?”

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