The Jammu and Kashmir government ordered the suspension of academic activity at schools managed by the Falah-e-Aam trust (FAT), an offshoot of the banned Islamic organization Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI), on Tuesday, and urged education department officials to close all of the institutions within 15 days. Officials were also required to enroll the students in adjacent government institutions, according to the decree.

 

This decision came after an investigation by the Jammu and Kashmir Police’s State Investigation Agency (SIA) uncovered severe irregularities, outright fraud, and a massive invasion of government lands by FAT. The FAT was founded in 1972 and is affiliated with the Jamaat-e-Islami, an Islamic organization that was declared illegal in February 2019, leading to the arrest, detention, summons, and interrogation of hundreds of its leaders, activists, and sympathizers.

According to reports, the SIA discovered that all FAT schools, numbering over 300, were built on fraudulently obtained government and community land, which was occupied by coercion, at gunpoint, and collusion with revenue officials who committed fraud and forgery by intentionally distorting entities in revenue documents.

According to a recent direction issued by BK Singh, Principal Secretary to the Government, School Education Department, all academic activities in the schools operated by the ‘Falah-e-Aam’ in J&K must cease immediately. “All students studying in these prohibited institutions shall be admitted to nearby government schools for the present academic year, 2021-2022,” the directive states. All CEOs/principals/ZEOs must make the entrance of these pupils as simple as possible. There will be no new admissions to these prohibited FAT institutions, and there will be no future registration of these institutions.”

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