15 from J&K crack civil services exam
JAMMU: At least 15 candidates from conflict-ridden Jammu and Kashmir have qualified the prestigious civil services examination, results of which were declared on Friday.
These include a Kashmiri Pandit, Rahul Bhat (Rank 68), whose family was displaced from the Valley in 1989, Abhishek Sharma (Rank 69) from remote Sarkoot village of Kishtwar district and Amir Bashir (Rank 843), from the nomadic Gujjar community and a resident of Mendhar, a village near the Line of Control, in Poonch district.
“Dreams are abound in small towns and villages of J&K. Youngsters of the state are no less than anyone and my advice to them is to dream big. But we need to create an apt atmosphere,” said 26-year old Rahul Bhat, who cracked the exam in his second attempt.
Rahul, who was born in Udhampur after his family left the Valley, said: “I missed the bus by only two marks in my first attempt. But this time, I put in a lot of hard work and did microplanning to make it through,” he says.
Rahul’s family hailed from Chadoora in Budgam district and is now settled in Delhi since 1998. Rahul’s father VG Bhat says it was his dream to see his son crack the UPSC exam.
Rahul did his BE in mechanical engineering from MIT Pune before joining Mahindra and Mahindra in Odisha. But in December 2015, he quit his job, said his father.
Abhishek Sharma, 24, of Sarkoot village of Kishtwar district cracked the exam in his third attempt. “My mother, a government employee, told me about IAS. She used to take me to the offices of SDM and other civil servants to inspire me,” he said.
Abhishek, a junior engineer with the public health engineering department, did his Class 10 from Kishtwar, Class 12 from Jammu and then civil engineering from GCET Jammu in 2014. After a brief training of five months in Delhi, he returned to Kishtwar where he studied on his own.
Amir Bashir, 25, who comes from the nomadic Gujjar tribe and whose house in Salwa village is just 4km from the LoC in Mendhar, cracked the exam in his third attempt. Amir works as assistant director in the ministry of defence. His father, a motor mechanic, died in 2006. His mother, a section officer in the agriculture department, kept him motivated despite financial constraints.
Bashir did his schooling from army school in Jammu and mechanical engineer from GCET Jammu in 2015.