NGO that filed PIL against Bikram Singh did nothing else

Youth Empowerment Service (YES), the non-governmental organisation that filed a PIL against Army Chief Gen Bikram Singh, seems to no longer have an office, and the man who was its president now disowns his association altogether.

The NGO appears to be doing nothing at present, and the current deputy commissioner of Anantnag says he has never heard of it.

According to the Army's inquiry, YES had links with another NGO called Jammu and Kashmir Humanitarian Service Organisation, whose founder, Hakikat Singh, a Shopian fruit trader, was given Rs 2.38 crore, allegedly from secret service funds.

YES's PIL against Gen Bikram Singh, alleging his involvement in a fake encounter in Jangalat Mandi in 2001, when he was a Brigadier, was widely seen as an attempt to scuttle his promotion and alter the line of succession in the Army. The PIL was dismissed by the J&K High Court. YES is not known for anything other than filing this PIL.

The office of the NGO, a room that it had rented in 2010 at the Jana Hassan Complex in Achabal in Anantnag, now has a different tenant.

The room itself was locked when The Indian Express visited on Friday. Farooq Ahmad Sheikh, the owner of the premises who lives with his family in the same complex, said: "We have let this room out now to a pharmaceutical association. The people associated NGO that filed PIL against Bikram Singh did nothing else with YES left many months ago. They took away furniture and the signboard of the organization."

Sheikh said he knew nothing about the NGO's activities. "We were only concerned with our rent, which they used to pay till they were in the building," he said.