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Thursday,
February 27, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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Bedlam
prevails in J&K House QUESTION IN
J&K HOUSE APHC fails
to decide on talks with Vohra Militant
among 2 killed in valley J&K to
raise 5 IRP battalions |
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7
Hurriyat leaders held Rights
panel to challenge SOG merger Power
bill arrears: J&K tops defaulters’ list 470 kg
poppy husk seized
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Bedlam prevails in J&K House Jammu, February 26 Trouble started during the debate on the Governor’s Address to the joint session of the legislature. The Speaker, Mr Tara Chand, expunged certain remarks which Mr Sadhotra made on the Mufti seeking to become a member of the Upper House. Order was restored when the Law Minister, Mr Muzaffar Hussain Beig, pointed out that the Mufti has adopted the same route which the NC leader, Dr Farooq Abdullah, recently followed for becoming a member of the Rajya Sabha. He said the electoral college for the Legislative Council and the Rajya Sabha was the Assembly. The National Conference members came out against the appointment of Mr N.N. Vohra as the Centre’s interlocutor for talks to resolve the Kashmir problem. They said some political leader should have been appointed for the task. The leader of the Opposition, Mr Ghulam Mohiuddin Shah, said the Centre has no clear-cut policy on Kashmir and was adopting a piecemeal approach in this direction. He said to provide lasting peace in the Kashmir valley, the Centre should accept the resolution seeking the restoration of autonomy which the Assembly had passed two years ago during the NC regime. The constitutional provision of Article 370 should be followed in letter and spirit. Kashmir had acceded with India because the leaders of that time, including Jawaharlal Nehru, Rejendra Prasad and Acharaya Kriplani, believed in secularism. The Kashmiris rejected Pakistan’s theory of two nations on the basis of religion and decided to stay with India. We can never go with Pakistan, where there is no democracy. Mr Shah said the PDP of the Mufti from its heart was in favour of autonomy for the state, but it does not have the courage to express its sentiments. He warned that no attempt should be made to dilute the special status of J&K and the Centre should not try to trample the duly elected government in the state by usurping the powers which were granted under the instrument of accession. Mr Shah said the PDP and Congress had been accusing Dr Abdullah of flying in the helicopter of the state government, but now the Mufti was also doing the same. While these parties had been alleging that the ministers of Dr Abdullah’s government were never available in the Secretariat, but after coming to power their own ministers were mostly out of their offices. He alleged that the “healing touch” of the Mufti was a mere eyewash. The Special Operations Group of the police has been disbanded only on paper and the personnel of the SOG have been merged in the regular police. 500 volunteers were being recruited for being trained in Israel to fight militancy here. Mr Ajay Sadhotra (NC) claimed that the coalition partners of the Mufti have started criticising his government. A leader of the coalition had accused some ministers of indulging in corruption. Mir Saifullah (NC) said the Centre should have appointed a Cabinet sub-committee for a dialogue with various sections in the state if it was serious in finding a solution to the Kashmir problem. He said that we don’t want “azadi” and nor do we want to go with Pakistan, but we are only demanding the restoration of autonomy. Mr Ghulam Nabi Lone (PDP) said the three-month period was too short to judge the performance of the coalition government. However, the Mufti has succeeded in making the administration responsive to the problems being faced by the common people. |
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QUESTION
IN
J&K HOUSE Jammu, February 26 A question on the number of maktabs and madarsas receiving foreign aid was tabled in the state Assembly today but the government did not categorically state whether any such institution received financial assistance from foreign countries. The Minister for Education, Mr Harsh Dev Singh, said that the government had a list of 60 madarsas and maktabs functioning in the Kashmir valley and 57 in the Jammu region. In Srinagar district alone there were 34 such institutions but “we have no information whether any such madarsa got foreign funds”, he said. Mr Harsh Dev Singh also explained that in madarsas and maktabs the government had listed students were imparted education according to the syllabi prescribed by the state Board of School Education. To the question whether some Moulvis or teachers of these maktabs and madarsas had been arrested for involvement in militancy-related activities the government informed the House that a lecturer in a Higher Secondary School, Ghulam Hyder, had been taken into custody. He has been suspended. Meanwhile a government report tabled in the Assembly revealed that Baramula district topped the list of missing persons. In the past three years 833 civilians have been recorded as missing followed by 758 in Kupwara district and 658 in Doda district. In all 3744 civilians have been missing in 13 out of 14 districts in the state. There has been no report of missing persons in Leh district in Ladakh. The government informed the members agitated over police inability to trace the missing persons, that some of them might have crossed over to Pakistan for training in arms. The members urged the government to speed up investigations so that those killed by militants or the security forces, their kin received ex-gratia relief. The government also informed the House that steps were being taken to determine the fate of the missing persons. |
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APHC fails to decide on talks with Vohra Srinagar, February 26 During a six-hour long executive committee meeting today, the members discussed the appointment of Vohra but decided that the issue would be discussed at the general council of the amalgam, which would be meeting tomorrow, amalgam sources said. At the general council, representatives of all 25 separatist parties would discuss the issue and help the executive committee take a final decision. Meanwhile, after the meeting, the amalgam came out with a statement asking for a “meaningful” dialogue on solving the Kashmir problem but came up with no concrete road map. The executive committee also discussed the black-listing of the Anjuman Nusratul Islam, headed by Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, and said it is the first step towards “closing down of Islamic institutions under the Hindutva rule”. Sources inside the 25-party amalgam said it was called following several setbacks, including suspension of Mirwaiz’s passport and closure of Delhi office of the conglomerate.
PTI |
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Militant among 2 killed in valley
Srinagar, February 26 An official spokesman said security forces and the police in a joint operation killed militant Abdul Rashid Malik during an encounter at Luragam in south Kashmir last evening. The encounter ensued after militants hiding there attacked the search party with automatic weapons. One AK rifle, four magazines, 60 rounds, one wireless set and one grenade were recovered from the slain militant. He said militants kidnapped and later killed one person at Chakoora in Pulwama district late last night. Security forces during another search operation recovered two grenades, 20 rounds of ammunition and some incriminating documents from the house of one Shabir Ahmad at Zainapora Shopian last night.
UNI |
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J&K to raise 5
IRP battalions Jammu, February 26 Replying to a question by National Conference (NC) member Ali Mohammad Sagar in the Assembly, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Abdul Rehman Veeri said the Centre had sanctioned two battalions to augment the state police while sanction for the remaining three was awaited. Efforts were also on to replace para-military forces from law and order duty in the state, he said. Meanwhile, Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed has expressed concern that ex-gratia relief has been disbursed in only 135 cases of missing persons since the eruption of militancy in the state. Responding to a supplementary question in the state Assembly, Mr Sayeed said 1,553 persons were reported missing in the year 2000, 1,586 in 2001 and 605 in 2002. However, ex-gratia relief had been released only in 135 cases, of which 90 persons belonged to Kashmir and 42 to the Jammu region.
UNI |
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7 Hurriyat leaders held Srinagar, February 26 Mir, vice-president of JKLF, and Khalil of the Peoples League were among the seven Hurriyat activists picked up in raids conducted in different parts of the city, official sources said.
PTI |
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Rights panel to challenge SOG merger
Srinagar, February 26 Chairman Mohammad Ahsan Untoo addressing an executive committee meeting of the HRF here today said: “We are going to challenge the order in the court very soon’’. “We reject the merger of the SOG with the state police as the decision was taken to provide a shield to SOG personnel involved in human rights violations in the state, particularly in the valley,’’ he said. Mr Untoo said people of the state were not satisfied with this decision. “We want the prosecution of all SOG personnel who were involved in human rights violations, including custodial killings, rape, looting and other atrocities’’. While the government was protecting the SOG it had failed to release the detainees who were not involved in any serious offence, he said.
UNI |
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Power bill arrears: J&K tops
defaulters’ list Jammu, February 26 The state was frequently resorting to overdrawing power beyond its entitlement. The corporation has since last month introduced a penalty against the overdrawing states, the tariff of which is fixed on availability based tariff which is higher than the normal rates. The sources said there were no arrears against the Union Territory of Chandigarh, but Punjab and Himachal Pradesh had outstanding of Rs 5.98 crore and Rs 2.08 crore, respectively. However, the grid authorities were not worried about the payment from these states as these have been paying the dues regularly. An amount of Rs 23 lakh is outstanding against Haryana, while the BBMB has to pay Rs 1.09 crore. What is worrying the grid authorities is the accumulating arrears of Jammu & Kashmir. It is learnt that with no immediate solution in sight for the time being, the J&K Government is contemplating to issue public bonds to raise money for clearing the arrears. |
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470 kg poppy husk seized Jammu, February 26 The police raided a shop near a highway in Kathua town and seized 11 bags containing 470 kg of poppy husk. Harpaul Singh and Rajveer Singh were arrested under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act. The accused disclosed that they had taken the shop on the rent to dump poppy husk, which was smuggled from Srinagar last week.
PTI |
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