J A M M U   &   K A S H M I R

Move to decentralise powers in J&K
SRINAGAR, Aug 20 — The Jammu and Kashmir Government plans to decentralise and devolve administrative powers at various levels, as a part of its multi-pronged strategy to make administration people-friendly, an official spokesman said here today.

Pak pushes fanatics into India
JAMMU, Aug 20 — Groups of fundamentalists are being pushed into India via Nepal and Bangladesh by Pakistan for “motivating” Muslim youths to carry out subversive activities in the country.

Notwithstanding last year Kargil war, a woman harvesting apricot which fetches Rs 1 crore annually. Kargil war affected the business last year. — PTI photo

Move to decentralise powers in J&K

SRINAGAR, Aug 20 (UNI) — The Jammu and Kashmir Government plans to decentralise and devolve administrative powers at various levels, as a part of its multi-pronged strategy to make administration people-friendly, an official spokesman said here today.

As a first step in this direction, the powers withdrawn in the past from the heads of departments by the administrative departments to centralise in the secretariat are being reviewed for restoration to them, he said.

The government has undertaken a review of some laws at all levels, procedures and administrative power structure with a view to simplify procedures and decentralise administrative authority in the state.

The new strategy follows the recommendations of several committees constituted by the government like the Godbole Committee, the Moosa Raza Committee, the Establishment Committee and suggestions received at various seminars and public interactions the government had in the recent past, the spokesman told PTI.

He said the Establishment Committee comprising top functionaries of the administration was the apex body at the state level to deliberate on various matters, including administrative reforms and responsive administration.

He said the state government, which had been accused of misgovernance and rampant corruption, was committed to give to the people a responsive administration.

To make the administrative functioning transparent, the state government is planning to introduce a legislation for right to information, while all the departments are reviewing laws, procedures, norms and manuals to simplify these making them people-friendly, he said.

Possibilities are being explored for the issuance of common certificate for permanent residence, Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe, backward area and income by a single authority rather than multiple agencies to make the process quicker and minimise inconvenience caused to people in this regard, the spokesman said.

To ensure greater accessibility of the people to the administration at all levels, public hearings have been made mandatory for officers at district, provincial, state and secretariat level, he said.

“Directions have been issued to all Deputy Commissioners to visit tehsil headquarters along with district officers once a week on a pre-notified day, to attend public grievances on the spot, ” the spokesman said, adding that the DCs would be required to send feedback reports on these public hearings to Divisional Commissioners concerned regularly.

Pak pushes fanatics into India
From M.L. Kak
Tribune News Service

JAMMU, Aug 20 — Groups of fundamentalists are being pushed into India via Nepal and Bangladesh by Pakistan for “motivating” Muslim youths to carry out subversive activities in the country.

Senior government functionaries say these groups of fundamentalists include of teachers and religious scholars. Some of them are said to have already landed up in UP, Bihar, Kerala and Kashmir.

These teachers, according to government sources, have been assigned the task of organising secret meetings with Indian Muslim youths in mosques and in the houses of maulvis. They have also been directed to organise seminars and group discussions in madrassas.

In order to lend credibility to the activities of these religious scholars from Pakistan several government and non-government agencies in Pakistan have earmarked huge sums of money.

Besides this, Pakistani agencies have set up Border Action Teams (BAT), comprising activists of Jash-e-Mohammad, Lashkar-e-Toiba, Al Badr and men from the Pakistan army, which have been given the task of attacking security pickets, forward posts of the Army and police stations in the border areas. Reports say the recent attacks on Army posts in Nowshehra in Rajouri and in the Poonch sector were the work of BAT.

The activists of BAT have also been instructed to attack security posts and convoys away from residential areas so that local people were not subjected to any inconvenience.

Meanwhile, Pakistani agencies have ordered activists of the Jash-e-Mohammad, Al Badr and the Lashkar-e-Toiba to carry out joint operations against security forces and other pro-India forces. These militant outfits have been told to involve the Hizbul Mujahideen too in such operations. However, the majority of Hizb activists are said to be quite unhappy with the style of functioning of outfits dominated by foreign mercenaries. Hizb field commanders have lodged a strong protest with agencies across the border over “excesses” being committed by foreign mercenaries. This was one of the reason that armed clashes were witnessed between Hizb activists and those belonging to the Lashkar-e-Toiba in Rajouri, Poonch and Kupwara in recent weeks.

Activists of the Lashkar-e-Toiba, Al Badr and the Jash-e-Mohammad have been also directed to engineer defections in the Hizbul Mujahideen by forcing Hizb activists to join the former organisations. Official sources say that several Hizb activists have joined the Lashkar-e-Toiba or Jash-e-Mohammad in Baramulla, Tral, Anantnag and Rajouri in recent days.

This strategy was being adopted to discourage Hizb activists and field commanders from favouring talks with the government.

The government agencies continue to be baffled by reports that Pakistani agencies have been imparting arms training to women recruits in camps across the border. Recently a group of 30 teenage Kashmiri girls from Kupwara, Baramulla and Bandipore crossed over to Pakistan occupied Kashmir for arms training. In June last a group of Kashmiri women returned to the valley after receiving arms training.

The government agencies have found that not all the women who received training take part in militant activities. They work as couriers, carrying messages, arms and explosives, under thick and long “burqa”.

These agencies have carried out a snap survey which has revealed that not more than 60 per cent women, who go across the border for arms training, return to Kashmir. The rest have preferred to stay in Pakistan and Pakistan occupied Kashmir. 

Minister orders smuggler’s arrest

SRINAGAR, Aug 20 (PTI) — Jammu and Kashmir Forest and Environment Minister Ghulam Ahmad Shah today issued orders to arrest a timber smuggler, who allegedly attacked a forester recently in Pulwama district, under the Public Safety Act.

Mr Shah passed the order to book Mukhtar Ahmad Malik after visiting the injured forester Ghulam Rasool Sheikh at the Soura Medical Institute here.

The forester was attacked by Malik, a resident of Chak-e-Maidan Chatipora in the Shopian area of Pulwama district, with a sharp-edged weapon wounding him, when Sheikh intercepted him during a patrol duty on Independence Day, an official spokesman said here today.

He was admitted to a local hospital and later shifted to the medical institute here, the spokesman said.