News Analysis India

Tag: hurriyat

  • Sanction to prosecute Hurriyat leader, eight others sought in MBBS seat ‘sale’

    By PTI

    SRINAGAR: The Jammu and Kashmir Police has moved the home department for granting sanction for prosecution against nine people, including a leader of a Hurriyat constituent and an advocate from South Kashmir, in a case related to “selling” of MBBS seats in Pakistan to Kashmiri students and using the money to support and fund terrorism, officials said on Sunday.

    The case was registered by the Counter Intelligence Kashmir (CIK), a branch of the police’s CID, in July last year after receiving information through reliable sources that several unscrupulous persons, including some Hurriyat leaders, were hand in glove with some educational consultancies and were “selling” Pakistan-based MBBS seats and seats in other professional courses in many colleges and universities.

    At least four people were arrested by the CIK in August and it also named two of their accomplices who are at present in Pakistan and its occupied Kashmir areas.

    The CIK, after a thorough investigation, moved the Jammu and Kashmir home department and sought sanction for prosecution against the nine people under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), mandated according to the act.

    According to the officials, more evidence has surfaced during the probe in which it was also found that the money gathered from admissions had been passed on to some terror groups as well as secessionist groups for promoting enmity and waging war against the country.

    Significantly, the case could come in handy in carrying out with the provisions of banning hardline Hurriyat Conference as the chief of one of its constituents — Mohammad Akbar Bhat alias Zaffar Bhat of the Salvation Front — is among the nine against whom the sanction has been sought under the stringent UAPA.

    Some of the witnesses examined have indicated that many families approached Hurriyat leaders to avail the “programme”, a brainchild of Pakistan’s external snooping agency ISI, aimed at incentivising terrorism by compensating the family of killed terrorists by way of providing free of cost MBBS and engineering seats, the officials said.

    However, there have been instances where such families were disappointed as monetary consideration was given precedence over the intended objective of the “programme” run by the ISI, they said.

    The officials said that cost of seats ranged between Rs 10 to Rs 12 lakhs and in “some cases, the price was brought down on ‘sifarish’ (recommendation) of senior Hurriyat leaders, and depending upon the political heft of these secessionist leader, who intervened, concessions were extended to the aspiring student and his family”.

    CIK sleuths cracked the whip in August and arrested Bhat and three others for “selling” MBBS seats in Pakistan to Kashmiri students and using the money to support and fund terrorism.

    During the probe, it surfaced that MBBS and other professional degree related seats in many cases were preferentially given to those students who were close to family members or relatives of killed terrorists.

    There were also cases where the quota allotted to individual Hurriyat leaders were sold to anxious parents who wished their children to have MBBS and other professional degrees in one way or the other.

    More than 80 cases were studied in which either the students or their parents were examined for academic years between 2014-18.

    Searches were undertaken in about a dozen premises in the Kashmir Valley.

    The officials said that Bhat’s brother Altaf Ahmad Bhat and another arrested person’s brother Manzoor Ahmad Shah, were coordinating from across the border and facilitating the admissions.

    The two, who have been named accused in the case, had exfiltrated to Pakistan during the early 1990s for arms and ammunition training and have settled down on the other side.

    They played a key role on behalf of the ISI in facilitating matters pertaining to admissions under this category for this set of Hurriyat-linked persons in India as part of a nefarious design of pumping money into militancy and other terrorist related activities.

  • Hurriyat rejects allegations of involvement in ‘selling’ admissions in Pakistan medical colleges

    By PTI

    SRINAGAR: The Hurriyat Conference on Monday rejected the allegations that amalgam leaders were involved in “selling” admissions in medical colleges of Pakistan for financing terror in Kashmir.

    The Hurriyat, led by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, in a statement said, “The Hurriyat Conference completely rejects and denounces the propaganda being promoted in print and other media by authorities, that its executive leadership, who could recommend aspiring Kashmiri candidates to medical and technical colleges in Pakistan, would ‘sell’ the admission seats to students for money.”

    ALSO READ | Both factions of Hurriyat Conference likely to be banned under UAPA

    On Sunday, officials had said that a ban under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act may be imposed on both factions of the secessionist conglomerate Hurriyat Conference.

    They said a recent probe into the granting of MBBS seats to Kashmiri students by institutions in Pakistan indicates that the money collected from aspirants by some organisations, which were part of the Hurriyat Conference conglomerate, was being used for funding terror organisations in the union territory.

    The amalgam said that it wants to put on record that “this is completely unfounded, and can be verified by those students or parents whom they have recommended, many among them being from economically weaker sections”.

  • Hurriyat rejects police claim of selling MBBS seats in Pakistan to Kashmiris to fund militancy

    Express News Service

    SRINAGAR: After the Jammu and Kashmir’s police Counter Insurgency Kashmir (CIK) wing arrested four separatist leaders and accused Hurriyat Conference constituents of selling MBBS seats in Pakistan to fund militancy and separatist activities, the Hurriyat Conference led by cleric Mirwaiz Umar Farooq has rejected the claim.

    “The Hurriyat led by Mirwaiz completely rejects and denounces the propaganda being promoted in print and other media by authorities that its executive leadership, who could recommend aspiring Kashmiri candidates to medical and technical colleges in Pakistan, would sell the seats to students for money,” a Hurriyat spokesman said.

    He said the Hurriyat wants to put on record that “this is completely unfounded” and can be verified by students or parents whom they have recommended. “Many among them were from among economically weak sections.”

    ALSO READ | Both factions of Hurriyat Conference likely to be banned under UAPA

    “Hurriyat chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, who is also the Mirwaiz of Kashmir, has all along been giving recommendation letters to students for their benefit who were coming to him asking for it for colleges and universities in Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Turkey and elsewhere,” the spokesman said.

    On August 18, the Counter Intelligence Kashmir (CIK) wing of J&K Police arrested four persons including a senior separatist leader Zafar Akbar Bhat for allegedly selling Pakistan-based MBBS seats to Kashmiri students by Hurriyat leaders and using part of the money in funding militancy and separatism.

    Besides Zaffar Bhat, other arrested persons included Fatima Shah, Mohammad Abdullah Shah and Sabzar Ahmad Sheikh. Two more persons Altaf Ahmad Bhat, who is brother of Zaffar Bhat and presently in Pakistan and Manzoor Ahmad Shah, who is the brother of accused Abdullah Shah and presently living in Pakistan, have also been booked and declared absconders.

    According to police, the investigation found that on an average, the cost of an MBBS seat in Pakistan ranged between 10 to 12 lakhs and in some cases, the price was brought down on influence of Hurriyat leaders.

    “On the basis of available evidence, a conservative estimate indicated that the money involved could be around Rs 4 crore per annum as allocation of seats for distribution by individual Hurriyat leaders were around 40 seats for MBBS programme every year. It could be more. This aspect is still open and a matter of further investigation,” police had said.

    Police said investigation in the case (FIR number 05/2020 under section 13, 17, 22A, 40 Unlawful Activities Prevention Act read with section 4 of Prevention of Money Laundering Act) registered last year suggested that money collected from parents of the aspiring students was used, at least partly, to support and fund militancy and separatism in different ways.

    Meanwhile, a Hurriyat spokesman said the Hurriyat reiterates that the sentiments of J&K people with regard to resolution of the Kashmir dispute in a peaceful and fair manner cannot be altered despite repression, legal tactics or propaganda.

    “Hurriyat led by Miwaiz will always represent those aspirations and seek their fulfillment through its principled stand of dialogue and deliberations among the stakeholders of the conflict,” he added.

    Hurriyat chairman and cleric Mirwaiz Umar Farooq is under house detention since August 5, 2019 when the Centre scrapped J&K’s special status and bifurcated the state into two Union Territories.

  • Pak-based faction of Hurriyat conference devises plan to remember slain separatists 

    By Express News Service
    NEW DELHI:  Pakistan-based faction of the Hurriyat Conference has devised an elebaorate plan to mark the death anniversaries of two separatist leaders—Mirwaiz Maulvi Mohammad Farooq and Abdul Gani Lone —on May 21.

    While the Jammu and Kashmir faction of the Hurriyat Conference has announced a cancellation of all its programs in view of the pandemic, the Pakistani faction have decided to go ahead and observe the death anniversaries, bringing to fore the prevailing differences between the Mirwaiz Umar Farooq-led faction of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) based in Jammu and Kashmir, and its wing in Pakistan.

    According to the plan, the Hurriyat leaders aim to spread awareness through social media, affix posters and banners and gather at the graves of slain separatist leaders before the Friday prayers. The leaders also want people in Kashmir to march towards Mazar-e-Shuhada, Srinagar in accordance with Covid-19.

    They also want a complete shutdown to be observed in view of the death anniversaries and meetings to be held at mosques and other places throughout Kashmir. Among other activities, the group is planing to organise protests in different countries. It has also called for a press conference to be held in Islamabad.