Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, July 11: Following the arrest of Chairpersons of two ETT Institutes by the Crime Branch Jammu and likely similar action against several others in the cash for certificate case, a number of accused have gone underground.
The Crime Branch, which has arrested Munish Suri, promoter and sole trustee of Calliope ETT College, Kathua and Sudarshan Kumar Gupta, Chairman of Vivekanand Institute of Education, Training and Research, Lakhanpur, Kathua, today secured five -day remand of both the accused for their further questioning.
“Even as the investigations are still going on, Crime Branch has prima-facie established irregularities by more number of ETT Institutes and also identified the persons involved in the fraud, who will be arrested soon,” SSP Crime Jammu, Mubassir Latifi told the Excelsior.
Meanwhile, sources said that some identified accused in the ETT Institutes case have gone underground as the Crime Branch is looking for them. To avoid their arrest and escape from the Crime Branch noose, some influential ETT Chairpersons are also learnt to be seeking help of political connection, sources said.
However, the Crime Branch is vigorously pursuing the case to expose the whole nexus and all the accused would be arrested soon for punishment to them by the court of law, sources added.
Pertinent to mention that the case FIR No. 36/2013 under Sections 420,468,471,120-B/RPC and Section 5(2) P C Act was registered in Police Station Crime Branch, Jammu after an enquiry conducted by Joint Secretary of J&K Board of School Education (BOSE), revealed that Elementary Teachers Training Course conducted by ETT Institutes in the State was a huge scandal where money in hundreds of crores had exchanged hands as bribe and almost all persons were involved in the loot. All sorts of malpractices had been done as neither registration of candidates was done in time nor classes were started nor the Hostel facilities were provided. The candidates were lured and a huge amount ranging between Rs 45,000/- to 80,000/- was taken from each student each year for the two year course through touts for providing them the degrees / certificates by the erring institutions who did not fulfill even the basic norms and standards laid down by the National Council for Teachers Education (NCTE), but have been allowed / permitted to run this course by issuance of NOC from the State Government which has to be granted after conducting the periodic inspections of these institutions for basic infrastructure purposes and NOC by the BOSE for academic purposes.
This huge scandal was being run by a mafia in league with J&K Board of School Education authorities, who in furtherance of a criminal conspiracy with the management of these institutions had dishonestly and fraudulently granted affiliation / permission to these institutions in gross violation of the norms by abusing their official position.
According to SSP Mubassir Latifi, Crime Branch Jammu probed the matter thoroughly, visited all the institutes on record and found glaring discrepancies and nonexistent infrastructure in a number of such institutes. “During investigations it was established that the J&K Board of School Education had started ETT course without framing any rules, regulations and norms for establishment of these institutes and had allowed some promoters to start these institutes illegally,” he added.
During investigation, it was found that one of the accused had enrolled 651 students illegally and the other one had enrolled 483 students for the session 2003-2005 in connivance with the BOSE authorities.
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