Schools run by former JeI affiliate get notice, asked to wind up

Officials of FAT said they could approach the court on the issue. “We haven’t been banned. Our schools are registered and recognised by the state education department. How can they (officers) force us to close schools?” said a senior official. “If the need arises, we will approach court against this arbitrariness.”

The FAT was set up around three decades ago to run educational institutes that were formerly run by JeI. The trust runs around 300 schools across the state and provides employment to 10,000 teachers. More than a lakh students are enrolled in these schools. While less than 20 of these schools are under direct administrative control of the trust, rest are run by local committees of villages and towns.

A senior official of the trust said, “Our sole objective is to impart education, we have no political objectives. We don’t have any direct relation with JeI or its subsidiaries.”

On Friday, a school run by FAT was sealed in Ajas village , Bandipore. The seal had to be removed after villagers protested.

Ajas Tehsildar Naveed Ahmad Bhat told The Indian Express, “We were only confirming whether the school is a JeI property. We learnt it is run by a separate organisation which is not banned.”

The notices to the schools have made students, their parents and teachers worried. “Most of the students in our schools are from middle and lower middle classes,” said a teacher from Bandipore. “The closure will affect students and render us jobless.” Government also sealed the house of a JeI worker Bashir Ahmad Lone (62) in Srinagar, he was outside the state for treatment. “A naib tehsildar arrived with police. They drove us out and sealed the house,” Lone’s son Younis Ahmad said. He said he approached officials, who said the government order had been misunderstood by some. Deputy Commissioner Srinagar Shahid Iqbal Choudhary told The Indian Express that he would “look into the matter tomorrow”.