J A M M U   &   K A S H M I R

4 militants, jawan die in encounters
JAMMU, June 20 — A jawan and four militants were killed and two militants injured in separate encounters in Doda and Poonch districts of the Jammu region, official sources said today.

Life in valley full of contradictions
JAMMU, June 20 — While local residents gathered at the Mughal Gardens, overlooking the Dal Lake, on Sunday in connection with the death anniversary of separatist leader, Qazi Nissar, who was gunned down by certain gunmen in 1994, some enjoyed the weather at a famous resort in Pahalgam.

Autonomy Committee’s recommendations
SRINAGAR, June 20 — The following is a summary of the recommendations made by the nine-member State Autonomy Committee headed by state Housing and Urban Development Minister Ghulam Mohiuddin Shah.

Autonomy issue: Gujjars unhappy
JAMMU, June 20 — The Gujjar Welfare Association, the Scheduled Tribe cell in the BJP and the Nationalist Congress Party have condemned the National Conference move to adopt the motion on states autonomy committee report in the special session of the assembly.

4 militants, jawan die in encounters

JAMMU, June 20 (PTI) — A jawan and four militants were killed and two militants injured in separate encounters in Doda and Poonch districts of the Jammu region, official sources said today.

A joint operation was launched by the Special Task Force (STF) and 26 Rashtriya Rifles on specific information about the presence of a heavily armed militant group in the Trenlak-Banni area of Doda district last night, the sources said.

Two top militans were killed in the ensuing encounter last night which lasted for two hours. A jawan, who was critically injured, later died.

Two AK rifles, seven magazines, eight IEDs, two rockets launchers and large quantity of ammunition were seized.

One militant each was killed in two separate encounters in the Sawajian and Cherji areas of Poonch and Doda districts of the Jammu region.

During search operation in Chingus of Rajouri, the army seized 1000 Pika rounds, 180 AK rounds, 38 rifle grenades and 15 kg of explosives last evening, sources added.

KATHUA (FOC): There was a heavy exchange of fire between ultras and a joint party of the CRPF and the Army in the Taggar forest area of Kamlote-Gala in Billawar tehsil today.

According to unconfirmed reports, 3 ultras had been nabbed while others had escaped.

Reinforcements had been despatched to the site of the encounter.

Life in valley full of contradictions
From M.L. Kak
Tribune News Service

JAMMU, June 20 — While local residents gathered at the Mughal Gardens, overlooking the Dal Lake, on Sunday in connection with the death anniversary of separatist leader, Qazi Nissar, who was gunned down by certain gunmen in 1994, some enjoyed the weather at a famous resort in Pahalgam.

When a senior police officer was asked to explain the contradictory nature of the two events he said, "Life in the valley has been full of contradictions and conflicts during the past 10 years of militancy."

These 10 years have cost the life of about 30,000 people, including several hundred policemen, but there has been no end to the lust for power. People are being killed everyday but there has been no let up in the construction of new houses and shopping complexes.

On the one hand nearly 10,000 houses of Kashmiri displaced families were damaged, another 20,000 were looted during the past 10 years, but on the other more than 30,000 new residential houses have come up in Srinagar and other five districts since 1991.

Mason and carpenters are seen working in the backdrop of gun and grenade attacks, demonstrations and encounters between the militants and the security forces.

If on the one hand the land earmarked for graveyards in various parts of the valley has covered vast area in Idgah in Srinagar, the number of land grabbers too has multiplied.

Senior government functionaries referred to the series of incidents in which militants had encroached upon the government land or on private land in various areas of the valley. Those who were supporting, directly or indirectly, the insurgency in the state had spent fortunes in purchasing palatial houses and prime land in Srinagar and other towns, including Jammu city, during the past 10 years.

Some of the known separatist leaders have share in business houses and in other transactions. Moreover, the number of orphans and widows has increased during the past one decade and there has been a clamour for government jobs. Although Kashmiri militants and separatists have been engaged in encounters with the police but on the other hand there is a race for seeking jobs in the police. During the past three years more than 20,000 Kashmiri youths have been recruited in the police, paramilitary forces and the Army.

While the educated youth have been lured to militancy, the rush for admission to professional colleges and universities has not diminished. On one hand the separatists have launched a campaign against the government, but on the other hand youths make frantic efforts to get recruited in government departments. It was the result of the rush for jobs that the state government had no other alternative but to adjust nearly 1.58 lakh youths in various government departments, including the police.

The 10-year-long insurgency has also caused discernible population changes. Several thousand families from the far-flung areas of Kupwara, Baramula, Anantag, Budgam and Pulwama districts have shifted to Srinagar district. They have purchased houses of migrants while others have built new houses. New residential colonies have come up on the outskirts of Srinagar.

Militancy has allowed more than 200 Kashmiri families, considered to be among the have-nots, to become one of the richest families in the valley. And top separatist leaders, dreaded militants and some contractors, who are in league with the militants, are in the list of the wealthy persons.

On one side the rebels have been trying to impose a code of conduct as far as living style of the people was concerned, but on the other hand people, including women, in Srinagar and other towns are the best dressed ones as they do not restrain from buying foreign gadgets, garments, make-up kits.

Srinagar has the highest number of cars, including the latest models. When an expert met a two-member Iranian delegation that visited the state recently to assess the situation, he highlighted these contradictions. The two Iranian leaders were amazed saying that "Jehad and luxury do not go side by side."

Autonomy Committee’s recommendations

SRINAGAR, June 20 (UNI) — The following is a summary of the recommendations made by the nine-member State Autonomy Committee headed by state Housing and Urban Development Minister Ghulam Mohiuddin Shah.

Matters in the Union List not connected with the three subjects of defence, external affairs and communication and/or ancillary thereto but made applicable should be excluded from their application for the state.

The committee recommended that the word temporary be deleted from the title of Part XXI of the Constitution of India and the word "temporary" occurring in the heading of Article 370 be substituted by the word "special".

All modifications made in Article 246 in its application to the state subsequent to the 1950 order should be rescinded. List II (State) and List III (Concurrent) of the Seventh Schedule should not be applicable to the state, Article 254 should be restored to the position of 1954 and Article 262 and 263 which were not applicable under the 1950 order but were subsequently extended to the state, should cease to apply.

About elections in the state, the committee recommended that changes brought about in this part be reversed.

About the imposition of emergency, the committee recommended that it shall be subject to whatever decision the state Assembly might take within two months of the declaration of emergency and failing any such decision, the proclamation of emergency shall be deemed to have been revoked.

Separate chapter

The committee recommended that Fundamental Rights (Part III) be deleted and a separate chapter on fundamental rights be included in the state constitution.

The Union (Part V) Article 72 (I)C, 72(3), 133,134, 135, 136, 138, 145(I) and 151(2) should be made non-applicable to the state as was the position in the 1950 order and Article 149 to 151 should apply to the state in the form in which they were in 1954.

The State (Part VI) Article 218 be omitted in its application to the state and the position as it existed before the Jammu and Kashmir Constitution (First Amendment Act) of 1959 restored; Article 220, 222 and 226 should also be omitted in their application to Jammu and Kashmir state.

About finance, property, contracts and suits, the committee recommended that the matter be discussed between the state representatives and the Union Government as agreed to during the talks in 1952 (Delhi Agreement).

Services under the Union and the state, in Articles 312 the brackets and words including the state of Jammu and inserted by the Constitution (Application to J and K) Order, 1958, be omitted.

Special provisions relating to certain classes, application of Articles 338 and 342 to the state should be omitted and corresponding provisions made in the state Constitution.

Amendment of the Constitution of India, Clause (4) of Article 368 added vide C.O. 101 be deleted, Clause (2) of the article should apply with the provision already introduced by the 1954 order and clause (1) thereof which was not in existence in 1954 and was introduced in 1971 should remain omitted in its application to the state.

It said that in the Seventh Schedule entries in the Union List not applied to the state by the Constitution (Application to J and K) order, 1950, should be omitted, Concurrent List which was not applicable to the state in 1950 but was applied by subsequent orders should cease to apply to the state.

Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir (First Amendment) Act 1959 in so far as they relate to directions and control of elections to the state legislature and to the state high court, and Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir (Sixth Amendment) Act, 1965, relating to change of nomenclature of the Head of the State and state executive, mode of appointment of the head of state and other consequential amendments should be repealed and the original provisions of the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir restored.

Summing up

To sum up, the provision of the Constitution of India specified in the Second Schedule and the matter specified in the First Schedule to the Constitution (Application to J and K) Order, 1950, and the matter agreed to by the representatives of the state and the Union vide Delhi Agreement, 1952, should continue to apply and the state, subject to the same exceptions and modifications as are specified in the said order and the Delhi Agreement.

It said all orders issued thereafter under Clause (1) of Article 370 of the Constitution of India by the President applying various provisions and matters of the Constitution of India to the state whether in full or in modified form or making any change in the provisions of matters already applied by 1950 order or agreed to under the Delhi Agreement, should be rescinded and the provisions or matters so applied to the state should cease to apply.

The committee recommended that the changes made in the state Constitution vide Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir (First Amendment) Act, 1959, and constitution of Jammu and Kashmir (Sixth Amendment) Act, 1965, be repealed and the original provisions of the constitution of Jammu and Kashmir as adopted by the state constituent Assembly on November 17,1957, be restored.

The committee also made some suggestions for safeguards for future.

Suggestion

It said a suggestion had been made that Article 258 should be invoked for entrusting to the state functions in relation to any matter to which the executive power of the Union extends, this, it said, would put a seal on the record of the past.

Functions so entrusted can always be recalled. This issue is not one of executive functions but legislative powers apportioned between the union and the state under two solemn pacts between them, the Instrument of Accession in 1947 and the Delhi Agreement of 1952 to which the President’s order of May 14,1954, gave constitutional sanction besides Article 370 itself. To them must we return if popular sentiment is to be respected and resentments assuaged. It is first and foremost a moral issue. It also has an important constitutional and a political aspect.

The committee said 40 years of unconstitutional practice had created a mess and the best course was for the President to repeal all orders which were not in conformity with the Constitution (Application to J and K) Order, 1950, and the terms of the Delhi Agreement, 1952.

It further said ever since Article 370 had acquired a dangerously ambiguous aspect. Designed to protect the state’s autonomy, it had been used systematically to destroy it.

A pact is necessary between the Union and the state which makes ample redress to finalise their relationship by declaring a constitutional understanding that Article 370 of the Constitution of India can no longer be used to apply to the state of Jammu and Kashmir any other provisions of the Constitution of India beyond the ones extended under the 1950 order and the Delhi Agreement, 1952.

This, the committee said, could be embodied in a new article that specifies the agreement as part of the unamendable basic structure of the Indian Constitution.

It said the complexities of our situation rendered it the best, perhaps the only, course for removing the debris of any unhappy past and building in its place a relationship between the state of Jammu and Kashmir and the Union of India which reflects the most vital aspect of mutual trust and respect.

Autonomy issue: Gujjars unhappy
Tribune News Service

JAMMU, June 20 — The Gujjar Welfare Association, the Scheduled Tribe cell in the BJP and the Nationalist Congress Party have condemned the National Conference move to adopt the motion on states autonomy committee report in the special session of the assembly.

Tempers seem to be running high among political leaders of different hues in Jammu and Ladakh over the plan of the National Conference to accept the autonomy panel report.

The president Gujjar and Bakerwal Welfare Association, Mr Noor Mohd, the chief of the Scheduled Tribe cell in the BJP, Sardar Mohd. Khan and vice-president the state unit of the BJP Mr Chander Mohan Sharma, told newsmen here today that the move to restore greater autonomy to the state was part of the National Conference plan to "perpetuate one family rule" in the state.

They described the demand for greater autonomy as "ill-designed and sinister." They said the security situation in the state demanded communal amity and regional unity but instead of promoting it the National Conference move was fraught with serious consequences and might result in tension and regional bickerings.

Mr Noor Mohd said before 1953 there was no jurisdiction of the Election Commission and the Supreme Court in Jammu and Kashmir with the result anyone opposing the National Conference candidate would be jailed and tortured. He said the National Conference had been adopting dubious ways to retain power.

At a meeting of the executive committee of the Nationalist Congress Party, which was presided over by its president, Thakur Randhir Singh, a resolution was adopted opposing the demand for greater autonomy to the state.

Thakur Randhir Singh suggested that Dr Farooq Abdullah should discuss the pros and cons of the issue with all political parties and avoid taking any hasty decision which could complicate the already fragile political and security scenario in the state.