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Friday,
December 27, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Qureshi
formally charged in 1971 hijacking case CM visits
kin of violence-hit YEARENDER — 2002 Forum
chairman, JKLF leader held |
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| Ex-manager
of bank held Srinagar, December 26 A former bank manager with militant links, who had allegedly misappropriated Rs 3.70 lakh and crossed over to Pakistan, was arrested after he returned to his village in Kupwara district in Jammu and Kashmir after 14 years, the police said today. 
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Qureshi formally charged in 1971 hijacking case Srinagar, December 26 Qureshi, who surrendered to the Indian authorities last year after spending 20 years in a Pakistani jail and several European countries, was charged for hijacking the Fokker Friendship plane to Pakistan and kidnapping passengers, his defence counsel Syed Riyaz Khawar said after the hearing before Mr Justice Hakeem Imtiyaz. Qureshi was also charged with hatching a criminal conspiracy with hanged JKLF founder Maqbool Bhat and under a section of the Enemy Ordinance Act. The court fixed December 31 for the hearing of the case. Mr Khawar said since Qureshi had already served a sentence in Pakistan for the hijacking, he would appeal against the charges in the Jammu and Kashmir high court on grounds of double jeopardy. Qureshi, who on his return here floated the Democratic Liberation Party said, “I have been accused of being an agent of India in Pakistan and now here I have been charged with being an agent of Pakistan. I want to make it clear that I am an agent of the people of Jammu and Kashmir.” He said these charges would not hamper his struggle for peace, development and right to self-determination for the people of the state. “We had taken the case of double jeopardy before the honourable judge who said the law had due regard for international covenants but Qureshi was prosecuted in Pakistan under the Official Secrets Act and the Enemy Ordinance Act. “We will take all legal recourse available to us against the charges. In my view, as my client has already served a term for the offence in Pakistan, he cannot be punished for it twice,” Mr Khawar said. The trial will now begin, Mr Khawar said adding that “we have recourse through Article 22 of the constitution of the country which recognises the principle of double jeopardy.” Qureshi hijacked the plane, which was on its way to Srinagar from Jammu, to Lahore where he set the aircraft ablaze after releasing the passengers in 1971.
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CM visits
kin of violence-hit Jammu, December 26 The Chief Minister handed over a cheque for Rs 3 lakh to Mr Khan. The scene was no different at Hasoit village at Thanamandi of Rajouri district where the Chief Minister met the mothers of three girls. All these girls had been killed by the militants as the girls’ fathers were in the paramilitary forces. It was on December 19 that militants had barged into the houses of these girls and dragged Navreen Konsar (19), Shehnaz Akhtar (18) and Tahira (17) out of their houses and beheaded them leaving their mothers in shock. Mufti Sayeed, Mr Azad and Ms Mehbooba Mufti consoled the mothers and the Deputy Commissioner, Rajouri, was directed by the Chief Minister to provide jobs to one member of each family. The government has already disbursed ex-gratia relief to the bereaved families. Addressing people in the area, the Chief Minister called upon people to persuade the militants to shun the path of violence as it had brought only misery and destruction in the state. He said the government was exploring the possibility of holding a dialogue with different groups of people and the talks could succeed provided the guns fell silent. He assured the people that after he had impressed upon the Prime Minister to grant an economic and a job package for the state, the situation would improve with the release of these packages. |
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YEARENDER — 2002 Jammu, December 26 It was a year of military buildup on the border with people worried over the impending war. And when the Prime Minister announced “It will be aar paar ki ladayee”, people in Jammu and Kashmir started getting ready for seeing their villages and houses ravaged by aerial bombing missiles and artillery guns. Even though the war clouds thinned within two months of the military buildup, more than 40,000 border villagers were affected by their migration and by their inability to carry out farming following the occupation of over 32,000 acres of land in Jammu, Kathua, Poonch, Rajouri and Udhampur district. The Defence Ministry had to pay over Rs 37 crore as compensation for the land occupied by troops for laying mines. Political analysts say it was a year of the people of the state in the sense that they defined threats from militants and participated in full strength in the battle of the ballot. It was for the first time since 1989 when more than 40 per cent voters cast their votes to overthrow the National Conference government after a gap of 27 years in the most transparent and fair election. The loss suffered by the National Conference was a gain for the three-year-old Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), led by Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, which won 16 seats in the Kashmir valley. The performance of the Congress was equally creditable when it won 20 seats, most of them in the Jammu region. For about 13 years, the Congress was plagued by infighting and groupism and with Mr Ghulam Nabi Azad taking over as the PCC chief it was almost a rise from the ashes for the Congress. Its gains were a loss for the BJP. The BJP won one seat against eight in 1996 mainly because of internal dissensions and on account of feud with the RSS-led state morcha. The morcha had fielded its candidates from 12 constituencies and managed to win just one seat. The year witnessed love-hate relation between the BJP and the National Conference on the one hand and on the other the Congress and the PDP trained their guns against the BJP and the National Conference. Though there was no pre-poll alliance between the Congress and the PDP, the former did not field its candidates from three Assembly constituencies to ensure victory for the PDP candidates. Free and fair panchayat and Assembly poll left the separatist camp in disarray. The separatist camp, especially the All-Party Hurriyat conference, felt jittery over the way the Mufti started hijacking the Hurriyat agenda which included the release of political detenues, non-implementation of POTA, disbanding of the SOG. The Hurriyat
conference remained locked in differences among its constituent leaders. As such it could not hold the election for post of the Chairman and Prof Abdul Gani Bhat was asked to continue to head the congolmerate. As a result of Islamabad’s continued moral and material support to cross-border terrorism, the much-awaited Indo-Pakistan talks for the settlement of the Kashmir issue or the intended dialogue with the separatists and militant groups, operating within the state, did not materialise. As many as 11 wisemen, most of them representing various militant and separatist outfits, formed what they called the Salvation Group for initiating a dialogue with the Government of India. The exercise proved a non-starter because the members of the group were neither given weightage by the Centre nor the militants. For yet another year talks between the
government and the separatists did not fructify despite secret channels of communication having remained open.
It is now the Chief Minister, Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, who has been pressing the Centre to fulfil its commitment of holding talks with the representatives of people and other political organisations. The year 2002 saw militants making a bid to kick up communal passions by attacking temples, including the historic Raghunath Temple, which was desecrated and partially damaged in two terrorist strikes resulting in the death of several civilians and security personnel. However, people did not lose their cool and communal amity remained the hallmark of the year. The freedom of expression and movement remained a restricted affair in the state, especially in the Kashmir valley. In fact, people were under the shadow of scare created by the militants who killed 914 civilians in different parts of Jammu and Kashmir. The militants got into direct encounters with the security forces and in the crossfire more than 125 civilians were killed. More than 528 security personnel, including 86 police personnel, lost their lives while fighting the rebels. However, there was one satisfaction for the security forces that they eliminated 1,662 militants between January 1 and December 22 and arrested 665 of them. There was a step-up in the Fidayeen attacks and the year witnessed 10 deadly suicide attacks on civilians and security pickets besides the religious places in which 20 security personnel and 54 civilians, including 20 family members of the Army personnel, were killed. As far as the recovery of arms and ammunition was concerned, the year that has ended registered a major haul which included 1524 assault rifles, 305 pistols, 61 rocket projectile guns, 32 rocket launchers, 2646 grenades over 700 rifle and anti-tank grenades besides several hundred kilogram of high-grade explosive material. Militants made reckless use of grenades, bombs, rockets. Militants carried out 278 grenade and 35 rocket attacks and 252 bomb explosions in different parts of the state. The only improvement was on the infiltration front. Official reports said nearly 1,645 infiltrators crossed into Jammu and Kashmir from across the border between January 1 and December 22 against 3,138 in 2001. More than 400 militants were killed on the border while attempting to infiltrate into the state. The rate of infiltration picked up from across the Jammu sector and government figures reveal that while this year 820 infiltrators sneaked into the Jammu sector from across the LoC, the figure in the Kashmir valley was 830 against 2609 in the Kashmir valley and 901 in Jammu province in 2001. There was no change in the policy related to the return of migrants to the valley. The PDP-Congress coalition government in its Common Minimum Programme, has included return of the displaced families to Kashmir and the Chief Minister had already discussed the matter with groups of migrants, who have expressed their willingness to go back despite opposition by various Pandit organisations. Right from 1990, when militancy took roots in the state, people have been yearning for peace. Peace has eluded them all these years. People pray for the return of peace with the dawn of the new year. They also look towards the Mufti for performing some miracle. |
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Forum chairman, JKLF leader held Srinagar, December 26 Mr Ahsan Untoo and Mr Javed Mir along with their supporters tried to hold a procession from Parta Park, near here, to the United Nations Military Observers’ office at Sonawar to lodge a protest against the recent judgement by a special court in Delhi awarding the death sentence to three Kashmiris in the Parliament attack case. As soon as the processionists began their march towards Sonawar Mr Ahsan Untoo, Mr Javed Mir and three others were arrested as they shouted slogans.
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Ex-manager
of bank held Srinagar, December 26 The accused Mohammad Anwar Malik, a resident of Trehgam village, had in 1988 allegedly misappropriated the money at the Keran branch of J and K Bank of which he was the manager, it said, adding that he then fled to Pakistan. Malik returned to his village six days ago to a rousing welcome and before the police could take any action, he voluntarily went to a local security camp and gave himself up.
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