Charge sheet against 9 in MBBS seat selling case

As per a recent media report in Greater Kashmir, 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 people, 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 colleges and universities.

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The SIA issued a statement, reading, "State Investigating Agency has produced Charge sheet before Hon'ble Court of Special Judge designated Court in MBBS seat selling racket."

The CIK, which has been designated as the SIA now, filed its charge sheet before a court against Mohammad Akbar Bhat alias Zaffar Akbar Bhat, the chairman of Salvation Movement, a constituent of hardline Hurriyat Conference.

"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", it said.

During investigation, oral, documentary and technical evidence was collected and in analysis it surfaced that MBBS and other professional degrees-related seats were preferentially given to those students who were close family members or relatives of killed terrorists, they told PTI.

Evidence also came on record to show that money had been put into channels that ended up supporting programmes and projects pertaining to terrorism and separatism, which included the unrest after the killing of Burhan Wani, the poster boy of banned Hizbul Mujahideen terror group, in 2016.

The money was also used in failed efforts to disrupt peace after the abrogation of the erstwhile state's special status in August, 2019.

Greater Kashmir reports, 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."

The statement read, "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. As per the investigation, on 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."

Talking about the money involved, the SIA statement read, "On the basis of 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 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."

The statement mentioned that five persons were arrested and were produced before the Court after which they were sent to Central Jail, Srinagar. It also read that three persons involved in the act are "evading their arrest and challan was produced against them in terms of section 299 Cr.P.C to declare them absconders while as the investigation with regard to the other aspects of the investigation/suspects (Co Conspirators) is in progress and the facts will be presented the Hon'ble Court through a supplementary chargesheet."

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