The Jammu and Kashmir police has busted a racket involving a Hurriyat leader and eight others for selling the MBBS seats in Pakistan to Kashmiri students and using money to support and fund terrorism.
A case was registered by the Counter Intelligence Kashmir (CIK), a branch of J&K police's CID in July 2020 after receiving information through reliable sources that several unscrupulous persons, including some Hurriyat leaders, were hand in glove with some educational consultancies and are selling Pakistan-based MBBS seats and seats in other professional courses in various colleges and universities.
Police sources said: "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 charge sheet filed under the National Investigation Agency (NIA) Act before a court includes names of Mohammad Akbar Bhat alias Zaffar Akbar Bhat, the chairman of Salvation Movement, a part of the Hurriyat Conference.
While others named in the charge sheet include Fatima Shah, Altaf Ahmad Bhat, Qazi Yasir, Mohammad Abdullah Shah, Sabzar Ahmad Sheikh, Manzoor Ahmad Shah and Mohd Iqbal Mir.
Initial investigations reveal that MBBS and other professional degree related seats were preferentially given to those students who are close family members or relatives of killed terrorists.
Sources also reveal that money had been variously put into channels that ended up in supporting programmes and projects pertaining to terrorism and separatism. It further reveals that 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 Burhan Wani in 2016 and every effort was made to disturb the peace and tranquillity post abrogation of the Article 35A and 370 of the Indian Constitution.
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 incentivising 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", said a source in the police.
As per the investigation, on average the cost of a seat ranged between Rs 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.
Sources said: "On the basis of the available evidence, a conservative estimate indicated that the money involved could be around Rs 4 crore per annum, on the basis of the fact that allocation of seats for distribution by individual Hurriyat leaders were around 40 seats for MBBS programme every year".
Police have arrested five persons including Mohammad Akbar Bhat, Fatima Shah, Mohammad Abdullah Shah, Sabzar Ahmad Sheikh and Mohd Iqbal Mir and they were produced before the court. Altaf Ahmad Bhat, Qazi Yasir and Manzoor Ahmad Bhat are absconding.
( With inputs from ANI )
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