Updated: November 18, 2020 6:53:03 am
The daffodil school in Dumra is named in the FIRs. Abhishek Angad
Two officials from the district welfare office whose job it is to examine scholarship applications, a mastermind and his two associates, five school principals who have been accused of creating false beneficiaries, a local advocate, and a mother of two that has disappeared.
This is the nexus against which the first set of 11 FIRs has been presented in Dhanbad of Jharkhand, below an investigation by The Indian Express at illegal diversion of the Center’s pre-matrix scholarship for poor minority students.
The FIRs claim that the defendants allegedly “lured innocent people” to become “false beneficiaries”, “presented false KYC documents” at the welfare office, and evaded verification with the help of officials to have them schools will be registered in the National Scholarship Portal (NSP).
A woman, who has been identified as an agent in Dhanbad, is named as part of the Nexus based in the state’s Chatra district with operations in Bihar as well.
FIRs have been filed under the IPC sections on cheating and counterfeiting, including 420, and criminal conspiracy. No arrests have been made yet.
Nine people are among the key defendants: Vinod Paswan and Ajay Mandal, who are employees of the District Welfare Office; Nilofar Parveen, an agent; Pratap Jaswar, Jharilal Mahato, Kalim Akhtar, Santosh Vishwakarma and Abdul Hamid, who are owners or principals of schools; and Ghulam Musatafa, a lawyer at the Dhanbad court.
The FIRs name Chatra resident Mohammad Sadiq as the alleged kingpin, and his associates Abul Faisal and Amjad. They also name 96 schools, including three investigated by The Indian Express in the district: Colonel Public School, Daffodils in Dumra, and Indira Gandhi Memorial High School in Nawagarh.
Dhanbad was among the six districts of Jharkhand, in addition to Ranchi, Latehar, Ramgarh, Lohardaga and Sahibganj, where The Indian Express discovered that a nexus colluded to deceive gullible parents and students, and created false beneficiaries, while genuine applicants were left out .
The Indian Express compared NSP entries to recipients’ bank accounts in the Public Finance Management System (PFMS) to find several cases of illegally diverted scholarships in Jharkhand and Bihar. He found that the scam also affected schools in Punjab and Assam.
READ ALSO | Jharkhand Scholarship Scam: Aadhaar Obtained, Account Hijacked, and Counterfeit Hostel
The FIRs in Dhanbad they are based on a report submitted by a team, led by ADM (Law & Order), which conducted an investigation that followed up on The Indian Express investigation.
They claim that the local link is Parveen, whose husband is in Saudi Arabia and who is staying with their two children in Nichitpur municipality, about 20 km from the city.
When The Indian Express visited Parveen’s two-bedroom apartment, neighbors said she left with her children a few days ago. They said Parveen is in her 30s and used to receive various visitors with laptops.
One of the neighbors, Pappu Khan, who identified himself as a friend of the defendant’s family, said that Parveen used to ask local women for their Aadhaar cards and promised to help them get “stipend money” from the government. He alleged that she “took commission after the amount received.” Parveen could not be reached and a relative said she had “left Jharkhand”.
The FIRs include a statement from Parveen, recorded in an investigative report prepared by the ADM-led team, revealing how the scam was carried out. “Sadiq, Fazal and Amzad used to get user IDs and passwords from many schools. Once the scholarship money was credited to fake accounts, Sadiq used to give checks to many intermediaries, school principals, etc. “, it states.
Aside from Sadiq’s role, he says Faisal allegedly handled the money for “field operations” that involved school authorities. Amzad is a computer operator, he says, and allegedly “made” KYC application forms and filled them out on behalf of school authorities.
Under the scholarship, students in Class 1 to 5 receive Rs 1,000 per year, and students in Class 6 to 10 receive Rs 5,700 a year if they are day students or Rs 10,700 if they are in a hostel. Most of the corruption The Indian Express found, is related to these last two categories.
According to Parveen’s statement, Sadiq allegedly claimed that he “had contacts at the district and state level.” He claims that Parveen’s role was to send copies of the KYC documents to the Bienestar office for verification, after which the school authorities would obtain the user IDs and passwords and hand them over to Sadiq. “Sadiq operated in Ranchi, Sahibganj and Dhanbad in Jharkhand, and Aurangabad and Arrah in Bihar,” he says.
The FIRs detail the alleged role played by the other defendant, as detailed in the investigation report:
* Ajay Mandal, Computer Operator, District Welfare Office: allegedly registered schools at the NSP without the signature of District Welfare Officer Satyanand Dubey. Dubey told the investigation team that at least 12 of those searches were made. Mandal’s phone was turned off and they couldn’t reach him for comment.
* Vinod Paswan, District Social Welfare Office Officer: He was in charge of examining the files and was reportedly paid Rs 80,000 by Parveen and Sadiq. Paswan’s phone was turned off and they couldn’t reach him for comment.
* Mohammad Harun, Director, Gyan Jyoti Academy: allegedly paid Paswan Rs 30,000 for schools to register with the NSP. Harun could not be reached for comment.
* Pratap Jaswar, Principal, Genius Public School – Allegedly worked with Parveen and others to generate school user IDs and passwords and register fake beneficiaries. Jaswar could not be reached for comment.
* Ghulam Mustafa, defender: allegedly worked as a go-between with Welfare officials. When contacted, Mustafa said: “I have no role to play in the scam.”
After The Indian Express published a series of reports on the scam, the Union Ministry of Minority Affairs, which administers this scholarship, decided ask the CBI to investigate. Gaya police in Bihar too registered an FIR.
© The Indian Express (P) Ltd
.
