GUWAHATI
A local court in Assam’s Sonitpur district on Friday (March 14) remanded Mahbubul Hoque, the founder-chancellor of University of Science and Technology, Meghalaya (USTM), in judicial custody.
Mr. Hoque was arrested on February 22 from his residence in Guwahati along with five teachers of a school in southern Assam’s Sribhumi district in connection with alleged malpractices in Class 12 exams under the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE).
On March 3, the Gauhati High Court granted him bail in this case, the first of six against him. It protected him from arrest in each of the cases registered in Gossaigaon, Kokrajar, and Barpeta apart from the second case filed in Sribhumi where he hails from.
On Wednesday, he was arrested by the Sonitpur district police in a sixth case and brought him to the district from Sribhumi. The police were directed to produce him before the court on March 18.
Mr. Hoque, who also heads the ERD Foundation, operates several educational institutions apart from USTM, which is located on a hill in Meghalaya on the southern edge of Guwahati.
‘Flood jihad’
In 2024, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma accused him of waging “flood jihad” on Guwahati, claiming that water flowing down from the USTM campus caused massive flooding in the city.
A few months later, the Chief Minister said a case would be registered against Mr. Hoque for allegedly obtaining an OBC certificate, which was cancelled subsequently, in the 1990s through fraudulent means. “He is a big fraud, his entire background is fraud,” the Chief Minister said.
The USTM chancellor was then accused of issuing fake degrees and certificates, including promising students high marks from one of his schools in the Sribhumi district.
Mr. Hoque, however, played down reports of any conspiracy against him. “The charges against me would be argued in the court, where facts will be separated from fiction,” he said before his arrest a few days ago.
He also refuted allegations of financial irregularities, insisting that 80% of the students under Vision 50, a welfare initiative for underprivileged students across the northeast, receive free admission. “It is not a business venture,” he said.
