December 29, 2006	Friday	Zilhaj 07, 1427

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MUZAFFARABAD, Dec 28: Two schoolteachers from the NWFP's Kohistan district were arrested from an examination centre in Azad Kashmir's city of Mirpur for appearing in a BA paper in place of an MPA and the son of an MNA belonging to the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA), official sources told Dawn on Thursday.

The arrests were made at the Boys Degree College Mirpur after the police and AJK University officials came to know that Sultan Room Qureshi, 26, and Nisar Ahmed, 30, were impersonating Maulana Dildar Ahmed and Israrul Haque, respectively, during the ongoing BA supplementary examinations, the sources said.

Maulana Ahmed is a member of the NWFP Assembly from PF-61 Kohistan-I whereas Mr Haque is the son of Maulvi Abdul Haleem Khan, a member of the National Assembly from NA-23 Kohistan.

Maulana Ahmed is said to have proceeded to Saudi Arabia to perform Haj.

“We were monitoring the situation in the wake of reports of suspicious activities at this centre hence today's raid,” an AJKU official, who was part of the raiding team, told Dawn.

SHO city police station Mirpur Nadeem Arif told this correspondent that when the accused were quizzed outside the examination centre, they initially introduced themselves as Maulana Dildar Ahmed and Israrul Haque, but later disclosed their actual identities.

The accused had tampered with the roll number slips, affixing their own pictures in place of the actual candidates.

They also possessed eight fake ID cards, bearing their pictures with different names, including those of Mr Ahmed, Mr Haque and Maluana Mohammad Asmatullah, also an NWFP lawmaker from PF-62 Kohistan-II.

The SHO said the police had also recovered a roll number slip from their possession issued by the AJKU in the name of Maulana Asmatullah for BA annual examination 2006. One of them had impersonated as Mr Asmatullah in those examinations but could not clear the papers, he said.

According to the SHO, both the accused had confessed their crime before the police and some TV channels.

Accused Sultan Room Qureshi, a junior teacher in a government school, told reporters that Maulana Ahmed had offered him Rs20,000 for the job.

The other accused, a private schoolteacher, said he was promised Rs10,000 by Mr Haque.This correspondent made several attempts to contact Haque's father on the numbers published on the official website of the National Assembly but in vain.

The SHO said a case had been registered against the accused at his station on the application of Abdul Razzaq, superintendent of the concerned examination centre, under two sections of Universities and BISE Malpractices (Eradication) Act 1999 and five sections of Azad (Kashmir) Penal Code.

According to the Universities Act, a person impersonating someone who is a candidate for an examination, or mutilating, altering, erasing or tampering with any document connected with an examination or making undue use of such document, or attempting or abetting in the commission of the aforesaid acts shall be punished with imprisonment for a term and fine that may extend to three years and Rs50,000 respectively.

A constitutional petition has been pending with the Supreme Court since 2003 whereby the educational degrees of MMA lawmakers have been challenged.

The petition states that the degrees issued by the religious seminaries can only be used for teaching purposes and the candidates will have to clear two elective subjects along with one compulsory subject of BA level to be recognised as equally qualified as a bachelor’s or master’s degree holder by the government.