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Thursday, January 28, 2016

After calling IAS officer ‘uloo ka patha’, trade union leader threatens DSEK’s gherao


Pressure mounts on Govt. to detach JKTF President, withdraw his ‘VIP status’


Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
_____

JAMMU, Jan 27:  Even as a section of the bureaucracy is said to be “shielding and promoting” him, Government is reportedly mulling the transfer and detachment of the Jammu and Kashmir Teachers Forum [JKTF] President Abdul Qayoom Wani from Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) at the Civil Secretariat. Wani, who has publicly called the year- 2010 IAS topper and Director School Education Kashmir (DSEK) Dr Shah Faesal “chocolate boy” and “Uloo ka patha”, has now threatened to gherao the office of the Head of the Department in Srinagar on January 30.

Wani, who also claims to represent 500,000 Government employees, including 1,20,000 teachers, is primarily a schoolteacher. He is currently holding the office of the incharge coordinator SSA at the Civil Secretariat where, as the head of Employees Joint Action Committee (EJAC), he has uncontrolled access to the top corridors of power. If highly placed bureaucratic sources are to be believed, the proposal of Wani’s repatriation to DSEK has been moved in a chain of transfers and appointments without reference to his unparliamentary language and threatening tone and tenor against the IAS officer.

While addressing a gathering of his union’s office-bearers and teachers in Srinagar last week, Wani had bitterly assailed Dr Faesal over ordering the reshuffle of some JKTF leaders “in violation of the government’s transfer policy”. “By doing this, he has put his hand straight in the lion’s mouth”, Wani had asserted to the cheering crowd.

Proudly calling himself “a landlord’s son” and suggesting that the IAS officer was from a penurious family background, the JKTF President had further said: “He is no landlord’s son. He should tell us how he acquired properties in Kupwara and Hyderpora (Srinagar). If he doesn’t, I will reveal where his money came from”.

Following these controversial assertions, which have gone viral on social media, Commissioner-Secretary School Education Shaleen Kabra as well as Chief Secretary B.R. Sharma are said to be under pressure of the KAS and the IAS lobby to immediately terminate Wani’s access to Civil Secretariat.

“Bureaucracy has already disliked the VIP status the Chief Secretary has accorded to the former Education Minister Tara Chand’s right hand man. Sharma Sahab has not only given him free access to all the bureaucrats’ and Ministers’ offices but also made him member of some high level committees. He thinks he is another Chief Secretary”, said a senior IAS officer. He expressed apprehension that the trade union leader’s “threats and blackmail” would demoralise the public servants and make a mockery of the Governor’s administration.

Wani has called upon his union members to gherao Directorate of School Education Kashmir on January 30. However, another trade union, J&K General Line Teachers Forum on Wednesday distanced itself from Wani’s call and said that it was “nothing but sabotage to reform and innovative process initiated by Director School Education”. It dismissed the JKTF appeal as “the call of ego and arrogance” and claimed that its purpose was “to only malign the image of the Director”.

Speaking to STATE TIMES, Wani claimed that the purpose of his call was to register “protest against the transfers being made in violation of the Government’s transfer policy”. He said that two of his District Presidents had been transferred within two months of their posting even as the transfer policy did not approve such changes before the mature stay of two years”. He claimed that his objectionable remarks against the Director had been made “off the record” and said that he had no intention to hurt the HOD.

Wani said his “struggle” was against the recently invoked policies of the Government that include posting of a number of “outsiders” (KAS officers) as Joint Directors and banning of the private tuition of the government school-teachers. “We have 13 lakh students in the State. Only 5,000 are taking tuition at the centres set up at High and Higher Secondary Schools. (Former Education Minister) Naeem Akhtar and Director Education misled even the Chief Minister Mufti Sayeed. They told him lies and worked against the interests of the teachers as well as the students”, Wani said.

Wani also questioned Mr Akhtar’s decision of subjecting the RET teachers to a screening test years after they had been selected under proper procedure by successive regimes. “As far as the question of the dubious degrees and qualifications from unrecognised institutions is concerned, we have said publicly that such teachers should be terminated at once. But how can they render thousands of RET teachers jobless after years of their service?” Wani asked.

Unfazed by the JKTF threat of gherao, Dr Shah Faesal told STATE TIMES that he had started to clean up the system in his department and he would continue it without succumbing to any pulls, pressures and threats. He dismissed Wani’s allegations of corruption against him as “marks of frustration” and said that on January 30 itself he would be introducing the “Transfer Maila” from Ganderbal.

“It is an innovative governance initiative pioneered by the governments of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat. We will completely eliminate the ages old touts system which has unnerved some self-styled trade union leaders who have been thriving on this business. We will be directly interacting with the teachers in the field and order transfers on the spot as per the guidelines”, Dr Faesal said.

“To begin with, I have ordered just 45 transfers, six of them today. This includes 3 or 4 so-called trade union leaders who for decades have remained posted in non-teaching DIETs. Some of them had even set up their union offices in these DIETs. They have not put in a day of teaching at a school”, Dr Faesal said.

END
[Published in STATE TIMES January 28, 2016]

Sunday, January 24, 2016

Kashmir woman Murcyleen Peerzada quits IRF

In 2012 she assisted direction of 'Ek Tha Tiger'; In 2013, she joined Zakir Naik's Islamic Research Foundation

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
_______


JAMMU, Jan 22: Murcyleen Peerzada, 24, a Mumbai-based Kashmiri woman, who hogged headlines last year for her dramatic flight from the glamorous Bollywood to Zakir Naik's religion preaching organisation, on Friday announced to have quit Islamic Research Foundation (IRF).

“My association with Dr Zakir Naik's IRF has come to end today and from now I have no longer any association with the ladies wing of IRF. The decision of quitting my association with the organization is a personal one,” Peerzada said in an email to Srinagar-based news gathering agency Kashmir News Service.

“When I came to studying Islam, I didn't know anyone from the field of Dawah, and I was eager to learn it. For this I have joined one of the only Islamic organizations that I knew existed for women that time which was run by Mrs. Zakir Naik", Peerzada said while asserting that her path and that of the IRF did not match anymore.

“That was then and this is now, I part ways with IRF & can't accommodate it anymore. I'm grateful for most of the beneficial knowledge they gave me. However, our paths don't match anymore. I love positivity & creativity. I agree that the parting could be silent, however, since "YRF (Yash Raj Films) to IRF" was a page from my life that was appreciated, I thought it's best to put this development out there. I don't know where Allah will take me next but it's going to be some place amazing and positive I'm sure", she added.

“I will be not leaving Dawah work, just leaving an organization. Dawah work should be positive and peaceful, I strongly believe that. I am attracted to positivity & really want to do more fun & lighter things. I have a long way to go,” she is reported to have said.

Efforts to reach Peerzada and her Mumbai-based businessmen father Feroze Peerzada on telephone did not succeed.

Hailing from a village on the outskirts of the famous apple town of Sopore in northern Kashmir, the Peerzada family enjoyed proximity to the Bollywood bigwig Yash Chopra---a frequent Kashmir visitor who died days after shooting his last film in the Valley, in 2012. Chopra’s YRF had shot some of Bollywood's top box office hits on the picturesque Valley locales.

Then 21, Peerzada made her debut as assistant director of the YRF magnum opus 'Ek Tha Tiger', directed by Kabir Khan and produced by Chopra’s son Aditya Chopra and Sohail Sen. This Indian action spy film had Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif in stellar roles, besides Roshan Seth, Ranvir Shorey and Girish Karnad who played the RAW chief.

In 2013, she was signed up for YRF’s ‘Shuddh Desi Romance’ as a costume assistant director. But since the director Maneesh Sharma liked to take up newcomers for his movies, he asked her to do a screen test. “When I faced the camera, I suddenly felt exposed, emotionally and physically, even though I was wearing a salwar kameez. I felt vulnerable and uncomfortable. I just got up, and said, ‘I don’t want to do this", she told The Indian Express in an interview in August 2014.

Peerzada revealed that Yash Chopra’s death, coupled with Maneesh Sharma’s screen test, transformed her persona. Recluse at her home, she stumbled upon the transcript of one of Zakir Naik's speeches. It changed her life completely. She abandoned her Westernised, flamboyant lifestyle. From a “crazy shopaholic” who would lap up the “most expensive dresses and jeans”, she wore an all-black burqa.

While pursuing a Masters in Islamic Studies with an online university in Qatar, she picked up a thick collection of Hijabs in Dubai and joined Dr Naik's wife Farha as a female Islamic preacher and activist. In the next few months, she began organising female gatherings in Srinagar and preached Naik's puritanical ideology of Islam that runs contrary to the Sufi tradition popular in Kashmir since 14th century A.D.

In 2014, Peerzada organised an Ijtima in Srinagar, close to the venue of a musical concert. Next day she posted on Instagram: "Yesterday there was a musical concert in Kashmir15 minutes away from our conference which was attended by Bollywood actors Sohail Khan and Suniel Shetty. For Kashmir, that’s something rare. We were asked to move our conference so that we may be able to pull a crowd. But look at Allah’s greatness, we gathered a crowd of 4,000 people and the concert a crowd of 200.”

Nouman Ali Khan and Yasmin Mogahed became her role models.

Her tweets are usually re-tweets of Islamic scholars, and most are spiritual, asking people to turn to Allah to solve problems in their lives. “I don’t believe in teaching extremism. I have a very liberal approach towards religion. Angry speeches are not going to eventually appeal to the young, only love and wisdom can. Islam is a religion in controversy, and it needs youngsters like us to reach out to young Muslims in a humourous, light manner. American preacher Nouman Ali Khan cracks jokes in between his talks. That’s how it should be,” she said in an interview. She had a huge following on Instagram.

“They (the media) reduce women to objects that satisfy men and cause only a negative impact in people’s life including social networking sites. All the girls should learn to value themselves and their bodies. Cover up for the sake of Allah! Your body and also your character… My friends aren’t the girls who display themselves to the world, my friends are the girls who say they believe in Allah and prove it every day. They’re the kinds that will Insha Allah reunite with me in jannah. Their goal isn’t ‘boys, parties and fashion’. Their goal is jannah", she once posted.

Peerzada now suggests her "positivity and creativity" is in conflict with Dr Naik's teachings but in her cautiously drafted email she steers clear of being critical to the cleric whose radical preaching provides an inspiration to a huge chunk of the Muslim population in India including Jammu and Kashmir.

END

[Published in today's STATE TIMES]