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Friday,
August 2, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Ultras target NC to pre-empt poll Two more die on way to Amarnath Move to identify new tourist spots Court asks college to refund capitation fee
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Ultras target NC to pre-empt poll Jammu, August 1 Mr Bhat, who was otherwise Naib Tehsildar, was an aspirant for the NC ticket as he had plans of contesting the next Assembly poll. This was his only fault. Since 1996, when the National Conference was voted to power, militants have targeted their guns against the ruling party activists and between 1996 and 2001, 307 political activists had been eliminated. In this figure, the NC remained on the top with 229 losses. It was followed by the Congress which lost 44 party activists. However, during the last seven months more than 33 political activists have been killed, of which over 22 belonged to the National Conference. According to a senior government functionary, the main reason for targeting the National Conference was to discourage supporters of the ruling party from taking part in the poll process. Separatists and militants are aware of the potential of the NC in strengthening the democratic structure of the state when compared to other political parties that too have started their pre-poll campaign. The state government authorities do not feel surprised over the escalated militancy-related violence and take the plea of Assembly poll being round the corner and the annual Amarnath Yatra having already attracted several thousand pilgrims from different parts of the country during the last 12 days. They said the total turn out of the pilgrims may touch over 1.25 lakh by the end of the yatra, which is
scheduled to end on August 22. They pointed out that so far five attempts have been made to attack the pilgrim convoys but so far they had
succeeded in blowing up a taxi in which a driver and a pilgrim were killed. As per the reports received by different government agencies the Pak agencies were determined to disrupt the Assembly poll and in this connection three terrorist outfits, including Jamait-ul Mujahideen and Lashkar-e-Toiba, have constituted special squads to attack political activists, mainly belonging to the National Conference. These militant outfits have been planned to create added scare among political workers and voters so that there was very poor percentage of polling. A very poor turn out at the polling stations could allow a chance to India baiters to claim that people in the state were for a plebiscite and not election. It is in this connection that several political leaders, including the PCC Chief, Mr Ghulam Nabi Azad, Mufti Mohd Sayeed and those belonging to the BJP, have been favouring holding of elections under the Governor’s rule. They also support the demand for postponing the poll schedule so that the security situation stabilised and some separatist leaders too participated in the election. But the Government of India’s task of placing Jammu and Kashmir under the Central rule has been made difficult by its rejection of imposing the President’s rule in Gujarat even after the State Assembly had been dissolved. The Centre, experts say, cannot adopt two yardsticks, one for Jammu and Kashmir and another for Gujarat. The only way to resolve the impasse is to either persuade the Chief Minister, Dr Farooq Abdullah, to recommend the imposition of the Central rule or wait for the Assembly to complete its tenure in first week of October. For the time being the Chief Minister has requested the Centre to send additional companies of paramilitary forces to Jammu and Kashmir to tackle the activities of militants. Indications are that a determined bid would be made by the militants to scuttle or disrupt the poll process by resorting to armed strikes against security forces and civilians in the months to come in case the poll schedule was announced by August 6. |
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Two more die on way to Amarnath Srinagar, August 1 A sadhu died yesterday following cardiac arrest while another person died due to sickness at Chandanwari, 16 km from the Pahalgam base camp, they said, adding the deceased had not been identified. On July 30, two pilgrims were killed when militants hurled a grenade at a taxi in Anantnag while four died due to natural causes. Meanwhile, a total of 72,065 yatris had reached the Pahalgam base camp at Nunwan and Baltal till late last night, out of which 70,000 had “darshan” of the holy Shivalingam. JAMMU: The recent militant attack on Amarnath pilgrims has led to a fall in their numbers with only 2,316 leaving for the cave shrine on Thursday, as against the usual 4,000, including 302 women, 17 children and 370 sadhus. The decline in the number of pilgrims could be attributed to the militant attack in Anantnag area on July 30 in which two pilgrims were killed and five injured. Arrangements in connection with Buddha Amarnathji Yatra in the border district of Poonch were finalised at a joint meeting of the BSF, Army officers and representatives of the Buddha Amarnath Trust in Poonch on Wednesday. The meeting decided that the “Chhari Mubarik” (holy mace) of Lord Shiva would be taken from Dashnami Akhara in Poonch on August 20, covering a distance of 25 km on foot to Shri Buddha Amarnathji temple at Rajpur Mandi where it would be kept for “darshan” on August 21-22. The same will be taken back after the conclusion of the mela, an official spokesman said here.
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Move to identify new tourist spots Srinagar, August 1 As part of the drive to discover unexplored places of tourist interest, efforts are underway to reactivate tourism flow to the famous Abarabal-Kounsarnag trek in south Kashmir district of Pulwama. The Ahrabal fall on the Veshav river had been attracting a large number of tourists prior to the eruption of militancy. The area represents one of the most beautiful mountain treks in the valley to the famous Kounsarnag lake. The Minister of State for Tourism, Ms Sakina Itoo, recently laid the foundation stone of a tourist bungalow being constructed by the Tourism Department at a cost of Rs 60 lakh. It is also planned to improve the track from Ahrabal to Koungwattan to enable trekkers to go on the famous trek. Ahrabal is being developed as a base camp for trekking to different valleys in the area. The Department of Floriculture will also be setting up a park to enable day picnickers to visit the area and enjoy the sight of the famous waterfall. To promote adventure tourism and attract more local and domestic tourists to the valley, Yusmarg and Nilnag in the vicinity of the holy township of Chrar-e-Sharief are also being revived. The Department of Tourism is already giving top priority to four places of tourist interest — Srinagar with its world famous Dal Lake, Gulmarg, Pahalgam and Sonmarg. Among the pilgrim tourism destinations, the Vaishnodevi shrine near Katra in the Jammu region has been the main attraction for tourists. And in the valley, the shrine of Sheikh Zainuddin Wali at Aishmuqam on the Anantnag-Pahalgam road is the focus of attention of Tourism Department to attract more tourists. While laying the foundation stone of a tourist bungalow at Aharabal, Ms Itoo said the damaged tourism infrastructure would be reconstructed to give tourism a boost in the area which would open up avenues of employment to the locals in the far-flung areas of the state. She said the government was committed to ameliorate the lot of the people in this remote area and more locals would be engaged in the reconstruction of the damaged infrastructure so that the socio-economic condition of the people could be improved. She held that militancy had caused a great loss to the tourism sector in the state but every effort was being made to rejuvenate the traditional tourist spots and possibilities were being explored to develop more such potential spots. To provide better communication facilities and linkages to these remote spots, an amount of Rs 2.75 crore was being spent on the laying of a 12 km-long road from Khorbatpora to Ahrabal. Of this, a 7 km stretch would be tarred soon to facilitate the tourists. |
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Court asks college to refund capitation fee Srinagar, August 1 Mr Justice M.Y. Kawoosa, heading the Jammu and Kashmir State Consumers Protection Council, yesterday held the Jhelum Valley Medical College liable to refund of capitation fee amounting to Rs 5.35 lakh to Himayoon Jalal, a student of MBBS. In his judgement, he held the management responsible for malpractice of admitting students in violation of the directions of the Supreme Court and declared that it was, thus, liable to return the capitation fee to the complainant. The commission, however, held the complainant, Himayoon Jalal, responsible for breach of contributory negligence and, therefore, refused to grant interest and compensation on the principal amount. The complainant had alleged that the college advertised for seats, despite the fact that it was not recognised by the Medical Council of India. Nor was it registered with the Jammu and Kashmir University.
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