How J&Okay’s Secret Watchlist Led to the Takeover of 58 Well-known Colleges
On the Bemina, Srinagar, workplace of the Jammu and Kashmir Board of College Training, a file is stored inside a locker. They name it File 104, which is actually a watchlist of colleges flagged by intelligence companies. If a faculty finds its manner in, authorities registration is off the desk, with none formal response or a public discover.
One of many faculties within the highlight in latest days is Islamia Excessive College in Baramulla, one of many 58 self-financed faculties linked instantly or not directly to the Falah-e-Aam Belief (FAT) which the federal government has introduced it would take over, because it sees them as “below patronage of the Belief or falling inside its ideological orbit”.
The FAT is the academic affiliate of the banned Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI), J&Okay.
Following the federal government order, the administrative management of all 58 faculties has been given to principals of close by authorities faculties, together with Islamia Excessive College.
Registered as an impartial institute with the state board since 1992, Islamia Excessive College has round 1,500 college students on its rolls, 700 of them ladies.
Unfold over 13 kanals of land, it boasts amongst its alumni a number of senior cops and medical doctors, with its most-famous scholar in latest instances being rising cricket pacer Aqib Nabi. In Class 10 outcomes this 12 months, it had a move share of 95%, with 5 college students scoring 490 marks out of 500.
Islamia Excessive College’s administrative management is now with Authorities Excessive College, Buglowbagh, which, after the clubbing of seven extra faculties with it, has 170 college students on its rolls.
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A former scholar of Islamia Excessive College says that is “ironical”. “An administration that struggles to handle even 200 college students has been given management of greater than 1,500 college students.”
The takeover of the 58 faculties final week accomplished an train that started in 2022, when the executive management of the 22 unique faculties of FAT was taken over by the federal government, citing a 1990 crackdown on the belief. In August 2025, the federal government took over one other 150 such faculties.
“The takeover has successfully stripped us of our autonomy,” says the principal of a previously FAT faculty. “Our accounts are sealed and about each expense, whether or not the wage of academics or different routine prices, we’ve to get the approval of the principal of the executive faculty.”
Nevertheless, the principal of a FAT faculty that was taken over final 12 months says nothing a lot has modified for them on the bottom. “Every part is the way in which it was. Now we have the identical college students, similar academics, we do the recruitment the way in which we used to do earlier… The distinction is that college students of Lessons 9 and 10 are registered with the federal government faculty (that has administrative management over the FAT faculty now), and seem for exams below them.”
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By the way, the order of the Secretary, College Training, saying the takeover of 200 FAT faculties in August final 12 months, had led to disagreement with the Omar Abdullah authorities. Whereas the order mentioned deputy commissioners would take over the administration of the faculties, Training Minister Sakeena Itoo claimed that the order – issued in “the curiosity of scholars” – had been “modified with out her information”.
In accordance with her, the elected authorities had determined that these faculties can be sorted by principals of close by authorities faculties. Ultimately, an settlement had been reached on handing over the working of the faculties to principals of neighbouring authorities faculties.
The beginning
The Jamaat-e-Islami began with 22 faculties in 1967, at a time when Kashmir’s academic panorama was largely dominated by government-run establishments, other than a handful of missionary faculties within the personal sphere. Throughout the semi-urban and rural areas of the Valley, viable academic choices had been even fewer. It went on to additionally open faculties in Muslim-dominated areas of Jammu area.
In 1975, the JeI, J&Okay, was banned by the Sheikh Abdullah-led Nationwide Convention authorities. It approached the CM over the destiny of the faculties, and it was he who supplied an answer, a former member of the outfit says. “The CM mentioned you need to run these faculties below a Belief as a substitute of the Jamaat to maintain them useful.”
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The JeI had arrange the Falah-e-Aam (Welfare for All) Belief for social outreach three years earlier, and it was seen as the best choice.
Even because the JeI ban was lifted two years later, faculties run by FAT emerged over time as a well-liked, reasonably priced different to authorities faculties, with the most important draw being the early adoption of English as a medium of instruction, particularly in core topics like Arithmetic and Science, following the syllabus prescribed by the state board. In addition to these, the faculties taught Islamic Research and Arabic.
Over time, the state board supplied recognition to those faculties primarily based on suggestions of the deputy commissioners involved, performing on intelligence companies’ enter.
As militancy rose within the Valley within the Nineteen Nineties, the JeI was banned once more. This time, the crackdown was prolonged to FAT, with the 22 faculties instantly linked to it ordered shut. Nevertheless, the belief later received aid for them.
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For 3 a long time after that, until 2019, the faculties functioned with out main disruption, with the FAT community increasing to succeed in a scholar base of over 80,000 – almost half of them ladies – and using round 5,000 academics.
In 2019, forward of the abrogation of J&Okay particular standing, the JeI was banned yet one more time, with police and magistrates issuing notices to varsities run by the Belief.
The authorities needed to step in to make clear that these faculties wouldn’t be closed down, attributing the confusion to officers misinterpreting the JeI ban.
