IAS Officer, Others Face Prosecution For Fraud

SRINAGAR - Kashmiri officialdom was never very particular about how contemptibly low it stoops to plunder public funds, but it must have required an unusual degree of meanness to cheat backward Gujjars and Bakarwaals of their paltry government compensation for losses suffered due to hailstorms and heavy rain .

- Observer News Service

In this 7-year-old case, the then deputy commissioner Pulwama -incidentally, a senior IAS officer - S. D. Lone; another deputy commissioner, Muhammed Akram Hajam; the then assistant commissioner, revenue, and presently director, land records, Srinagar, Muhammed Afzal Bhat and the then tehsildar Pulwama, Habibullah Mir, along with nearly half-a-dozen petty officials of the district DCs office have been challaned by the vigilance organisation for misappropriating Rs 15 lakh which the state had santioned as relief to the nomads for livestock losses during natural calamities s