You Have A Seat, Boy

On October 9, 2012, the ‘JK Peace Foundation’ (JKPF), flagged off 700 students in the presence of governor N.N. Vohra, as part of the first lot of students under the Prime Minister’s Special Scholarship Scheme (PMSSS).

Fayaz Bhat, chairman of the NGO, is believed to be a former militant before he switched loyalties and started working for the state. He tried his luck in politics too before roping in the high and mighty for his ‘NGO’. Its twin websites, which are now offline, displayed governor Vohra as the chief patron and Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, former state DGP Ashok Prasad, former agriculture minister Ghulam Hassan Mir and several other VIPs as patrons. Ind­eed, the governor is a regular at events organised by the ‘NGO’.

As word spread about the attractive scheme, there was a rush of dubious NGOs offering scholarships under the PMSSS. According to a report in Greater Kashmir, some ‘NGOs’ even sent field agents on a home-to-home search to find potential students for colleges outside.

In Kupwara alone, ‘Right Education’ persuaded 22 students to cough up around Rsd 40 lakh. “They soon started dilly-dallying and then gave us an admission letter to some Kolka Dental College at Mee­rut,” recalls Azharudin, “The letter tur­ned out to be fake...when we confron­ted them, they started abusing us.”

The family managed to get the money back after a year-long struggle, but others have not been so lucky. Last year, former CM Omar Abdullah had said the crime branch of police was investigating the alleged frauds perpetuated by these NGOs. Not a single person has been brought to book though.