JAMMU: Ruling National Conference Tuesday demanded judicial probe into the functioning of Board of Professional Entrance Examinations (BOPEE) from its inception with special reference to alleged leakage of papers pertaining to post graduate courses in 2003 and shielding of the likely beneficiaries who numbered 21.
While the accused involved in the leakage were chargesheeted after a due process, the action against the beneficiaries was got stalled despite highest authority in the then government briefed about their identification, Provincial President Mr Devender Singh Rana said at a hurriedly called press conference here this evening.
We should not politicize the issue and instead reach the bottom of the problem as it involves the well being of human beings. But it is imperative to know that were the beneficiaries, the people want to know and whose orders were they shielding, he asked.
Flanked by Political Secretary to Chief Minister Mr Tanveer Sadiq and Provincial Secretary Sheikh Bashir Ahmed, the Provincial President gave the sequence of events that unravelled the 2003 scam which surfaced on 6th of December 2003 when several persons were arrested. They were interrogated and which led to the involvement of many persons, including an employee of the printer from outside the state. It took the then government to black list the printer, involved in paper leak with the assistance of local accomplices seven long months, though the action should have prompted immediately after the disclosure of the scam. On 10 December 2003, the question papers of MD entrance examinations were recovered from the accused in a private residence at Bemina. The printer was blacklisted on 9 July 2004. The challan against those involved in paper leak was presented without any mention of the likely 21 beneficiaries.
Mr Rana disclosed that while the investigating agency was likely to act against the beneficiaries, the intervention by the highest authority in the government stalled the process with the case withdrawn from highly decorated police officer late R. V Raju and shifting the then IGP Crime. In this context, he referred to the excerpt of an article by the officer, who is retired now, appearing in local newspaper.
The excerpt read: An enquiry regarding this complaint was pending with the Vigilance Organisation which was then headed by a police officer Mr R V Raju, considered to be an upright man and could have taken the cognizance himself but for unknown reason, he sent the complaint to the State Crime Branch for further enquiry and legal action The investigation of the case was heading towards a great success and after the evidences against the culprits were collected, the arrest of the ex-controller was effected. When the investigating team was going to tighten the noose of the controller of the time and other involved persons including the beneficiaries, regarding their arrest, the government instead issued my transfer order from the State Crime Department to stall the further arrest of other accused persons. This is how the successful investigation of the case and its conclusion was brought to the grinding halt.
Mr Rana wondered as to why the government showed such an urgency to shield the beneficiaries and who actually they were. This remains a mystery even after a decade of the crime committed in the noble medical profession, he maintained.
Replying to questions, the Provincial President said that there was nothing wrong to bring those involved with the hush up under the ambit of investigations, howsoever powerful they might be, as the decision to shield the likely beneficiaries was taken at the highest level. He clarified that those having committed the crime were not sacrosanct even if they belonged to Congress, PDP or National Conference. Truth must come out, as the scam involved the professionals dealing with the lives of people, he said.
