Tawqeer Hussain
The Jammu and Kashmir Police finally registered a case against the foster son of state cabinet minister and senior Congress leader Peerzada Mohammad Syed, for using fraudulent means to pass his class 10th class board exams in 2009. The crime branch concluded that his papers were written by board officials.
After conducting the enquiry for three years, The Crime Branch of Jammu and Kashmir Police registered the case (FIR No 1/2014) under sections 419, 420, 467, 468 and 120B of RPC against Imam Soban, foster son of Congress minister Peerzada Mohammad Syed, who is presently the minister of Haj and Auqaf in Omar Abdullah led Coalition Government in Jammu and Kashmir.
The Ministers son had allegedly made board officials to write his papers in 2009 and passed the matriculation examination in second division by scoring 283 marks out of 500. The Congress minister is accused of facilitating his son’s qualification in the 2009 matriculation examination through unfair means and impersonation.
“During the course of investigation, it was found three papers Urdu, Mathematics and Geography of Soban has different handwriting”, local media reported. Following allegation of misconduct the police has launched an investigation and booked Soban and the then examination superintendent Tariq Gilani along with examination assistant superintendents Javed Ahmad, Imtiyaz Ahmad Zargar and Mukhtar Ahmad.
The incident happened in 2009 when during an inspection a team of the Board of School Education (BOSE) caught Soban copying in the exam hall. Peerzada Mohammad Syed was education minister of the Jammu and Kashmir state at that time. Following the revelation Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has divested Syed of the portfolio of school education. Syed had forwarded his resignation to Congress president Sonia Gandhi who rejected it and Then Chief minister Omar Abdullah also said that Syed will continue in the council of ministers, and was handed over the portfolio of Haj and Auqaf.
While defending himself in the examgate scandal, Syed had said to the local media that his foster son had publicly disowned him as father. “He is not my real son and this fact has been told by him publicly. My foster son has disowned me. My wife was a victim of militancy and I rehabilitated the family,” the Congress leader was quoted by local media.
Peerzada Sayeed is not new to controversies and allegations of corruption. In 2005, the state accountability commission (SAC) indicted him for his involvement in the rural electrification scam worth crores of rupees. In 2008, he had to resign following allegation by the then MLA, Sangrama constituency, Shoab Lone, that Syed had asked him for a bribe for clearing a file.
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