JAMMU: Alleging that Education Department was being held hostage by the BJP in Ramnagar, Harsh Dev Singh, JKNPP Chairman and former Education Minister, on Sunday accused the department of indulging in large scale arbitrary transfers in circumvention of transfer policy, allowing local BJP MLA to use school premises for political functions besides other malpractices.
He said that a high level probe was necessitated in view of widespread allegations of trespassing into schools by local MLA, harassment of teachers, use of schools for political purposes, holding of political rallies in schools, assaults on teachers by armed gunmen of MLA inside classroom besides large scale paid transfers.
He was addressing a press conference, here on Sunday.
Flaying the coalition dispensation in the State and BJP in particular responsible for rampant anarchy and unbridled harassment of poor, destitute and un-influential in the current regime, Harsh took a jibe at Saffron MLA from Ramnagar R.S Pathania for enjoying immunity from legal action despite his highly scandalous, corrupt and opprobrious conducts ever since he had become a legislator.
The said MLA often trespasses into classrooms in various schools of Ramnagar constituency, and tries to cow down the teachers with threatening language in a bid to pressurise and scare them to fall in line and promote his political philosophy.
He said that harassment and attacks on teachers in Ramnagar had become a common feature in Ramnagar with culprits allowed to go scot free in view of their political influence.
He said that some of the already tainted officers including CEO Udhampur and some ZEOs were dancing to the tunes of the notorious MLA and indulging in large scale omissions and commissions calling for a thorough probe into their conduct and antecedents.
Deploring the bizarre felony offence committed by MLA Ramnagar of late, Singh lambasted R.S Pathania for trespassing into Higher Secondary School Basantgarh a couple of weeks ago along with his PSOs with malevolent intentions and started holding tests of teachers by questioning them.
He said that the legislator stormed into one of the classrooms and in furtherance of his vested political motives caught hold of one teacher named Pritam Singh and abused him for allegedly lacking expertise in his subject in front of the students.
“When the teacher resisted the MLA while saying that he was MA, B.Ed and knew his subject well, the latter lost his control and hurled choicest of abuses on the teacher and called the policemen and his gun wielding PSOs inside the classroom. In an unprecedented episode police not only made unauthorized entry into the class room but manhandled the teacher at the behest of the MLA and physically assaulted him before throwing him out of the school premises”, Harsh regretted.
Lambasting the MLA Ramnagar for indulging in open defiance of law due to the shelter of some BJP ministers, Singh further inculpated MLA Ramnagar for holding political meetings in the premises of various schools wherein he vehemently attacks the opposition parties and disseminates the political philosophy of his party.
He even held ‘joining ceremonies’ in the school and brazenly used principal’s chamber of HSS Basantgarh for photo ops in which the new entrants were garlanded along with him. And all this was facilitated by the Principal of the School Baldev Raj who is posted there since 2005 with only one month break and has completed 12 years in the said school.
He reiterated his demand for prompt and stringent action against MLA for his criminal conduct and sought his resignation saying that the lawbreaker lawmaker has lost his moral right to continue in the office.
The former Education Minister also urged upon the Chief Minister to take cognisance of teetering Education Department and order probe into the large scale irregularities in the whole gamut of transfers reportedly made on monetary and extraneous considerations in the recent past. He also demanded to revoke all such transfers until the final outcome of the investigation.
Gagan Pratap Spokesman JKNPP and Parshottam Parihar State Secretary PTU were also present in the press conference.