The Special Investigation Agency (SIA) of Jammu and Kashmir Police, which has been tasked to investigate anti-terror cases, filed the charge-sheet in connection with ‘cash for seats’ scam.
Reports said the charge-sheet has been filed against nine people, including a key Hurriyat leader, Mohammad Akbar Bhat alias Zaffar Akbar Bhat, the chairman of Salvation Movement, a constituent of the hardline Hurriyat Conference led by Masarat Alam Bhat.
The charges relate to the alleged sale of MBBS seats reserved in Pakistan’s medical colleges for students of Jammu and Kashmir, and siphoning the money to “support and fund terrorism”, officials said on Thursday.
The case dates back to July last year when the Criminal Intelligence Kashmir (CIK), a branch of the police's counterintelligence unit, reportedly received information that several people, including some Hurriyat leaders, were hand in glove with some educational consultancies and "selling" reserved seats in Pakistan’s medical colleges and universities.
Others named in the chargesheet are Abdul Jabbar, Fatima Shah, Altaf Ahmad Bhat, Qazi Yasir, Mohammad Abdullah Shah, Sabzar Ahmad Sheikh, Manzoor Ahmad Shah, Syed Khalid Geelani and Mohd Iqbal Mir of Mahaz Azadi Front.
“The information on the basis of which criminal investigations were started into the matter also suggested that the money collected from the parents of the aspiring or potential students was used, at least partly, to support and fund terrorism and separatism in different ways,” a police statement said.
“During investigation oral, documentary and technical evidences were collected and on analysis of collected evidences it surfaced that MBBS and other professional degree related seats were preferentially given to those students who are close family members or relatives of killed terrorists. Evidence also came on record to show that money had been variously put into channels that ended up in supporting programmes and projects pertaining to terrorism and separatism. For example, money collected in disguise of providing medical and other technical courses in various institutions of Pakistan were used to fuel up the unrest post elimination of terrorists including Burhan Wani in 2016 and every effort was made to disturb the peace and tranquillity post abrogation of article 35A and 370 of Indian Constitution,” it said.
“The Examination of witnesses corroborated by other circumstantial evidence indicated that many families who approached Hurriyat leaders to avail the programme of Hurriyat on the behest of ISI that aimed at incentivising terrorism by compensating the family of slain terrorists by way of providing free of cost MBBS and engineering seats as monetary consideration. By incentivizing the next of kin of killed militants for the terrorism and related activities of their killed militant relatives, Pakistan is trying to keep the Pot boiling and tends to radicalize the impressionable minds in the veil of technical education. As per investigation, on an average the cost of a seat ranged between 10 to 12 lakhs and depending upon the political heft of a Hurriyat leader who intervenes, concessions were extended to the aspiring student and his family,” the statement said.
“On the basis of available evidence, a conservative estimate indicated that the money involved could be around Rs. 04 crore per annum, on the basis of the fact that allocation of seats for distribution by individual Hurriyat leaders where around 40 seats for MBBS programme every year. The historical bonhomie between Hurriyat leaders and their masters in Pakistan has been again exposed through the investigations and has exposed their nefarious designs once more of being hand in glove with the terrorists based in Kashmir valley and Pakistan and the undercurrents of their close knit relationship is only to destabilize the UT of J&K and Union of India,” it added.
Zaffar Akbar Bhat, Fatima Shah, Mohammad Abdullah Shah, Sabzar Ahmad Sheikh and Mohd Iqbal Mir have been arrested while Altaf Ahmad Bhat, Qazi Yasir and Manzoor Ahmad Bhat are absconding and challan was produced against them in terms of section 299 Cr.P.C to declare them absconders, the statement said.