JKPSC topper lost home to militants, but didn’t give up

JAMMU: Cracking the Jammu and Kashmir Public Service Commission (JKPSC) was a dream Anjum Bashir Khan Khattak harboured since school but topping the exams was the icing on the cake.

The proud 27-year-old cleared the Kashmir Administrative Service (KAS) exams in his first attempt open merit list. For the young officer-to-be, it means a lot, especially after having faced the wrath of the insurgency.

“In 1990s, Surankote had been in the grip of peak insurgency, and in 1998, my ancestral house was torched by terrorists at Mohra Bachai (in Poonch district’s Surankote),” he recalled.

It was when Khattak was in class 8 or 9 that he started harbouring dreams of cracking the KAS exams. After completing engineering in computer sciences from Baba Ghulam Shah Badshah University (BGSBU) in Rajouri in 2012, he started preparing for civil services on his own.

“I never went to any coaching centre. I did all the preparation by myself. My focus was on presentation,” said Khattak, attributing the success to his parents. His father, Mohammed Bashir Khan, is a retired lecturer and his mother, Ghulam Fatima, is a government teacher.

Coming from an academic background helped Khattak stay focused. While at BGSBU, he developed an interest in current affairs and politics and public administration.

The secret of success, he said, was not in spending hours only on books. “One must be consistent and should study topics. I never studied after 11pm.”