JK school education department stops operation of Jamaat affiliated schools

SRINAGAR: More than 300 educational institutions run by Falah-e-Aam (FAT), an affiliate of banned Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI), have been stopped from operating by the Jammu and Kashmir school education department, officials said on Tuesday. An order was passed by school education secretary BK Singh on Monday directing the cessation of academic activities in FAT-affiliated schools and also asked chief education officers of various districts to seal the institutions within 15 days in consultation with the district administration.

The order also said that all the students studying in these banned institutions shall admit themselves to nearby government schools for the current session. The order has asked chief education officers, principals and zonal education officers to facilitate the admission of these students. No new admissions shall be taken in these banned FAT institutions, the order said and further directed the chief and zonal education officers to widely publicise about these unrecognised institutions. The order comes in the backdrop of investigations done by the State Investigation Agency (SIA) of Jammu and Kashmir Police which alleged gross illegalities, outright frauds, and mass-scale encroachment of government lands by FAT.

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The FAT, according to the officials, is an affiliate of the radical outfit Jamat-e-Islami which is proscribed by the ministry of home affairs under the provisions of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). The officials alleged that JeI mostly draws its sustenance from the vast network of FAT schools, seminaries, orphanages, pulpits of mosques and other charities and added that such institutions played a destructive role in the large-scale unrests of 2008, 2010 and 2016 bringing huge miseries to common people and forcing them for shutdowns by threat, intimidation and street violence.

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Interestingly, almost all FAT schools numbering over 300 have been found to be existing on illegally acquired government and community lands wherein lands were occupied by coercion, at gunpoint as well as colluding with revenue officials who made wrong entities in revenue documents by committing fraud and forgery, the officials said. The SIA has already registered FIR in such matter and the agency is expanding the ambit of these investigations to unearth all such frauds, unauthorised entities and forgeries that have been committed in the last 30 years at the behest of terrorists and for other considerations which include monetary gratifications, the officials added.