After the busting of the "White Coat" terror module, intelligence agencies have intensified surveillance on doctors who pursued their MBBS degrees abroad, especially in Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Although all foreign-trained doctors are under the scanner, authorities are specifically focusing on those who obtained MBBS degrees in Pakistan through recommendations made by leaders of the separatist All-Party Hurriyat Conference.
Before the professional-seats scam was unearthed in 2020, the Hurriyat Conference used to send students every year to Pakistan for MBBS and Engineering degrees. According to police, students from the Kashmir Valley went to Pakistan annually for higher studies, particularly for medical degrees.
In 2020, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) exposed the racket involving students, Pakistan High Commission officials, and separatist leaders from Kashmir.
The NIA had described the admission of J&K students to medical colleges in Pakistan on separatists' recommendations as an "alternative mechanism" for terror funding in the Valley.
According to police, "after receiving authentic inputs that some Hurriyat leaders were selling Pakistan-based MBBS seats in connivance with educational consultancy firms, the Counter-Intelligence Kashmir registered a case in July 2020."
Investigations revealed that the money collected from parents of aspiring students was being used to support and finance terrorism and separatism in multiple ways.
Police claimed that, on average, the cost of one seat ranged between Rs 10 to 12 lakh, with the price being reduced in some cases after intervention by Hurriyat leaders. Based on available evidence, a conservative estimate indicated that around Rs 4 crore per year was generated through this illegal admission racket. Every year, a minimum of 40 MBBS seats were allegedly allocated to Hurriyat leaders for sale.
Hurriyat operatives also used consultancy firms to lure students with fake 'national talent search' examinations. In some cases, parents were taken across the border on valid travel documents but were later coerced into paying additional money for their children's admission to Pakistani universities and colleges.
Parents trapped in the Hurriyat's game plan were forced to pay the extra money either online or through agents operating in Kashmir Valley. Many complied with the diktats of Pakistan-based Hurriyat leaders or Kashmiri-origin terrorists to secure MBBS admissions in Pakistan.
Sources said authorities have now placed under surveillance those doctors who recently returned to India—including Jammu and Kashmir—after completing their medical degrees in Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Importantly, Dr. Umar Mohammad, alias Umar-un-Nabi, a doctor from Pulwama in south Kashmir, has emerged as the most radicalised and key operative in the network spanning Kashmir, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh.
Four other doctors—Dr. Muzammil Shakeel Ganai of Pulwama (J&K), Dr. Adeel Ahmed Rather of Anantnag (J&K), Dr Umar Farooq, Srinagar and Dr. Shaheen Saeed of Lucknow (U.P.)—along with Mufti Irfan Ahmad Wagay of Shopian (J&K), were arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) after the "White Coat" terror module was busted.
According to NIA findings, all four doctors played significant roles in the terror conspiracy that claimed several innocent lives and left many injured. They had previously been arrested by the J&K Police.
