SRINAGAR, 1 June 2004 — Aspiring Kashmiri civil servants have threatened to kill themselves publicly if the latest round of recruitment for the prestigious provincial bureaucracy is not thoroughly probed.
Out of 137 selected for the coveted Jammu & Kashmir Combined Services, as many as 109 are from the Jammu region, 27 from Kashmir Valley and only one from the Ladakh-Kargil region.
And although Jammu and Kashmir is predominantly Muslim, only 62 of the successful candidates are Muslim while there are 75 Hindus.
A spokesman for a group of Kashmiri Muslims whose names did not figure in the final list accused the Kashmir Public Service Commission, which conducted the examinations, of deliberately leaking the question paper to Jammu candidates.
He said that the state government, acting on the federal government's behest, pulled out all stops to ensure that Jammu candidates fared better than those from the valley. He said the "conspiracy" first came to light when out of 421 candidates called for interview, as many as 322 were from Jammu while there were only 99 from the valley and Ladakh.
"It's a massive scandal. We demand an independent investigation. If the demand is ignored, dozens of unsuccessful Kashmiri candidates will set themselves on fire and die", the spokesman said.
