SRINAGAR, Jan 17: Immediately after the Independent MLA Shoaib Lone took objection to the arrest of driver Altaf Noorani and alleged that the bribe of Rs 40,000 had been actually demanded and received by the Education Minister Peerzada Mohammad Sayeed's wife on June 22, 2007, Police and intelligence agencies have begun to delve deep into the accused woman's background.
According to official sources, Police agencies have learned that Peerzada Sayeed had married the wife of a slain militant within a year of the death of his first wife in 1998-99. He had no issue from his first wife who belonged to his Kokernag locality in Anantnag district. Tabbasum happens to be the daughter of one-time JKPCC Secretary Abdul Aziz Tourist who had in his lifetime managed to get her a special seat for MBBS course with the help of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1983-84.
After getting the job of an assistant surgeon in J&K Health Department, she developed good relations with the seniormost JKLF militant commanders in 1989-90. It was in the first year of insurgency in J&K that Dr Tabbasum married senior JKLF commander Pervez Billa, who lived in Chhattabal locality of Srinagar. While she became the mother of a male child, Pervez was captured and killed by militants of Hizbul Mujahideen on the allegation of having killed the outfit's "Intelligence Chief" Mamoon Rasheed as also the father of another top functionary of the organisation, namely Firdaus Kirmani, both residents of Chhattabal area.
Tabbasum's son from her militant husband, who is now 17-year-old, has been living with her and Peerzada after she married him in 1999. Later, she also became the mother of a male child from Peerzada. Four years back, she has been posted in Kashmir chapter of Red Cross, though officials have learned that she has never been on duty during this period. They say that she had been recommended for a course in anaesthesia but due to her preoccupation with the husband Minister's work, she refused to undertake the training. They have also learned that she had been taking keen interest in the Minister's official files and his public relations.
After his dismissal from service and admission into PDP, a former Director of Rural Development Department is said to be targeting the Minister's wife than the Minister for the corruption in which Peerzada was "neckdeep" according to former Chairman of J&K State Accountability Commission Justice R P Sethi. SAC has, later, absolved Peerzada of the charges levelled against him in Panchayat Ghar Electrification Scam.
Even when Peerzada was a Minister and he failed to stop a Srinagar newspaper's tirade against him in 2004, many people here believed that editor of the Urdu daily was kidnapped and silenced by activists of a separatist group on the instigation of his wife.
