It's Assam where lawmakers turn lawbreakers!

It has come to the notice of the Board of Secondary Education, Assam (SEBA) that two high madrassas with the same me – Chalakura Japriya High Madrassa – were running simultaneously at Chalakura, Kokila (Manikpur), under Abhayapuri police station in Bongaigaon district. The school code and recognition numbers issued by the SEBA of the two schools are one and the same. The only difference in them noticed by the SEBA is that while the superintendent of one of the schools is Mofida Khatun, that of the other is Moinul Hoque.

By our Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, Dec 16: Lawmaker or lawbreaker? According to the standing rules, an MLA is not supposed to head any maging committee of education institution as president. When a legislator dares to break this rule, there may be something lucrative which he/she intends to grab.  AGP’s Abhoyapuri North MLA Bhupen Roy not only violated the law by holding the post of president of the governing body of a madrassa in the first place, he also did something else risking the lives of a large number of students at Chalakura under Abhayapuri in Bongaigaon district.

It has come to the notice of the Board of Secondary Education, Assam (SEBA) that two high madrassas with the same me – Chalakura Japriya High Madrassa – were running simultaneously at Chalakura, Kokila (Manikpur), under Abhayapuri police station in Bongaigaon district. The school code and recognition numbers of the two schools issued by the SEBA are one and the same. The only difference in them noticed by the SEBA is that while the superintendent of one of the schools is Mofida Khatun, that of the other is Moinul Hoque. The SEBA issued only one school Code No. 02M0635 to Chalakura Japriya High Madrassa at Chalakura.  However,  the two Madrassas  are using the same school code ‘No. 02M0635’. Surprisingly, both the schools claim as genuine.

Chalakura Japriya High Madrassa with Mofida Khatun as its Superintendent , set up in 1974, got affiliation from the SEBA on January 1, 2007 since when Khatun has been the superintendent of the school, while MLA Bhupen Roy was the president of its maging committee. There are allegations that the MLA, instead of running the madrassa smoothly, played a role to divide it into two in the same place overnight. “In doing so, the MLA took an assistant teacher of the Madrassa, Moinul Haque, out the school and made him superintendent of the madrassa which he formed with the same me, school code and registration numbers in November 2014 in the same place. The legislator did it in connivance with BDC School Inspector. With Khatun informing the Secretary of SEBA of it, the board heard the case on November 17, 2015 and issued a speaking order stating that the Madrassa being headed by Khatun is the genuine one,” sources said.

After the issuance of the speaking order by the Secretary, SEBA, Khatun wrote a letter to the Education Commissioner on December 14, 2015 stating that after affiliation of the madrassa in 2007 the flow of fincial assistance from the government was regular in fiscal 2009-10 and 2010-11.  However, a cumulative amount of Rs. 14.26 lakh for fiscals 2012-13, 2013-14 and 2014-15, according to the letter, was drawn by MLA Roy in connivance with the BDC inspector of schools. According to the letter, though Khatun has been working in accordance with the speaking order from the SEBA, the inspector of schools, following diktat from the MLA, creates impediments in her works, and that led her to write the letter to the Education Commissioner seeking justice against Bongaigaon DC, inspector of schools and the MLA.

It is worth mentioning here that the SEBA said that it would be tough so as to make the forthcoming AHM examition slated from the second week of February trouble free.