Bengaluru: Besides the thousands of poor, who voluntarily deposited their savings with the IMA group, it is now being alleged that some were coerced into investing in it.
It was an unwritten rule for those seeking admission to the Government VK Obaidullah school in Shivajinagar that they had to invest in the IMA group, which had signed an MOU with the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) to revamp its infrastructure, claim some parents.
An auto driver, Mahaboob Pasha, a resident of Lingarajpuram, who fought hard to get his son admitted in the school, claims that except for a few, most of its students are from well- to -do families, which have invested heavily in the IMA. "The school became an avenue to find investors for the group," he alleged.
Mr Pasha, whose son was at first denied admission on the ground that he was weak in Kannada, took up the issue with the Block Education Officer, Deputy Director of Public Instructions, Director of the Public Education Department and the Karnataka State Child Rights Protection Commission (KSCRPC). And after a hard fight of five months, he succeeded in admitting his son to the 9th standard at the school.
With the IMA group also appointing 90 of its own staff, both teaching and non teaching at the school, the fate of hundreds of students now hangs in balance. On Wednesday, when the primary school students arrived for their classes they found only two teachers present, forcing the government to declare a holiday for them both on Wednesday and Thursday. High school classes continued as usual as a majority of the teachers are on government payroll.
Shivajinagar MLA, R. Roshan Baig, who has become embroiled in the IMA issue, is reportedly an alumnus of the same school and is said to have met its group head, Mansoor Khan a few years ago, to request him to adopt it.
Meanwhile, it is said that Mr Mansoor Khan, who is absconding after allegedly cheating nearly 30,000 people to the tune of Rs 2,000 crore, owns 13 properties worth Rs 500 crore in the city.
