Srinagar: The Jammu and Kashmir administration on Tuesday sacked a deputy superintendent of jails and a principal of a government school for alleged terror links, officials said here.
Feroz Ahmad Lone, who is the Deputy Superintendent of Prisons Department, a rank equivalent to that of Sub-Inspector, and Javid Ahmad Shah, Principal of the Government Girls Higher Secondary School at Bijbehara in south Kashmir, have been terminated from service for allegedly “actively working with terrorist outfits”.
The government terminated their services by invoking Article 311 of the Constitution under which no inquiry is conducted before sacking. The number of employees sacked using the special provisions has gone up to 29 this year.
According to the officials, Lone, who was appointed in 2007-08 in the Prisons Department and finally got a job in 2012 after a prolonged court case, was alleged to be “working for terror groups”.
He was arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in 2017 and since then continued to on suspension.
According to the NIA, Lone had “facilitated a meeting between two youths, Danish Ghulam Lone and Sohail Ahmad Bhat, and arrested terrorist Ishfaq Palla at the behest of self-styled commander of the banned Hizbul Mujahideen, Riyaz Naikoo.”
According to the conspiracy, “the two youths were to go to Pakistan, receive arms training and return to the Kashmir.”
However, before they could leave, the two were nabbed by the police in 2017 and the case was subsequently taken over by the NIA. During interrogation, the youths named Lone, who was arrested by the central probe agency and sent to jail. He is at present out on bail but has not been reinstated.
Shah, who was appointed as a lecturer in 1989, later became principal of the Government Girls Higher Secondary School, Bijbehara in Anantnag. He is alleged to be a “hardcore terrorist supporter and an ardent sympathiser of Hurriyat and the banned Jamat-e-Islami (JeI),” the officials said.
He is alleged to have played the role of an advisor to Hurriyat cadre and Jamaat working in Bijbehara during the 2016 agitation and as a principal of a government institution, “he ensured that Hurriyat hartal calendars were followed in letter and spirit, not only in the school that he was heading but its subsidiary institutions too.”
Shah, “by misusing his official position openly, disallowed girl students of his institution to study and participate in physical education, curriculum, citing it against the fundamentals of Islam.”
He is alleged to be a “supporter of terrorists and he motivated girl students to study Islamic studies in a distorted way with the sole objective to radicalise them and fulfill his pro-Jamaat designs,” officials say.
Earlier last month, the administration sacked Anees-ul-Islam, a grandson of pro-Pakistan separatist Syed Ali Shah Geelani for allegedly “aiding terrorists’ activities” in the union territory.
Prominent among those dismissed from service earlier were the two sons of Pakistan-based Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin and tainted Deputy Superintendent of Police Devender Singh who was caught with a “most wanted terrorist” and two others along the Srinagar-Jammu national highway.
They were sacked when the Lt Governor was satisfied after considering facts and circumstances of the cases and the information available that the activities of these employees are such as to warrant their dismissal from service using provision of Article 311 (2) (c) of the Constitution.
Under this provision, the sacked employees can only approach the high court with their plea.
The process of dismissal of employees began in April this year barely a week after the Union Territory administration constituted a Special Task Force (STF) that is empowered to investigate allegations of involvement in anti-state activities against government employees and recommend dismissal of those found involved. (With inputs from PTI)
