The Jammu and Kashmir administration led by Lt Governor Manoj Sinha on Monday ordered termination of three government employees, including the public relations officer (PRO) of the University of Kashmir, for their alleged terror links.
Those terminated include Faheem Aslam, PRO at the KU, Murawath Hussain Mir — an officer at Revenue Department, and Arshid Ahmad Thoker, a constable in J&K police.
The terminations have been made under Article 311(2) (c) of the Constitution under which no inquiry is held and dismissed employees can only approach the high court for relief.
Sources said that all three employees have been dismissed from service with immediate effect as their activities had come to the adverse notice of law enforcement and intelligence agencies. “They have been found involved in activities prejudicial to the interests of the security of the State,” they said.
Aslam, who has been a PRO at the varsity since 2008, was also working as a correspondent for local English daily Greater Kashmir. Mir, a resident of south Kashmir, was appointed as junior assistant in the revenue department in 1985.
Thoker was appointed as a constable in J&K Police’s armed wing in 2006. He was later shifted to the Executive Wing of the police in 2009.
The dismissals were greenlit by a committee headed by J&K’s chief secretary Arun Kumar Mehta after the case was referred to him by a ‘Special Task Force’ (STF) chaired by J&K’s intelligence chief, which was set up in April 2021, sources added.
Since 2021, over 50 government employees, including grandson of late Syed Ali Geelani, two sons of Pakistan-based Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahudin, and tainted deputy superintendent of J&K police, Davinder Singh, who was chargesheeted by the NIA for providing support to the Hizbul, have been sacked under the Article 311. The total count has now reached 52.
Article 311 was extended to J&K after the abrogation of its special status under Article 370 in August 2019. One of its provisions says that retention of a person in public service, if prejudicial to the security of the state, can be terminated without recourse to normal inquiry.
A senior officer in the J&K General Administration Department (GAD) said the termination of employees on alleged terror links is an “ongoing process.”
“A list of atleast a dozen employees, including university employees, has been prepared and evidence is being collected against them,” he said.