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Sunday,
July 13, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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Mufti for change in Pak
mindset Slain soldiers’ kin given selection
letters News Analysis PM to chair council
meeting at Srinagar |
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First batch of pilgrims reaches
Amarnath 9 students hurt in IED
blast PDP leader murder accused held Leh conference from July
21 Valley to have film-making
infrastructure 3 held for poppy husk smuggling
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Mufti for change in Pak mindset Jammu, July 12 Addressing a function here this morning, Mr Sayeed said that for the normalisation of relations and peace initiatives to succeed, the mindset of the people as well as the Pakistani leadership had to change. ‘’The resumption of the bus service is a good move and the bus which arrived in Lahore yesterday carried a message of peace from India... but that is not enough,’’ he added. He urged the Centre to adopt a cautious approach, saying that Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had gone to Lahore in a bus extending hand of friendship but in return had got the Kargil incursion. Mr Sayeed said India had always made serious efforts to normalise relations with Pakistan, but the response from the other side was not adequate. ‘’This time hope is generated following positive response by Pakistan Prime Minister Mir Zaffarullah Khan Jamali to yet another bold initiative of Mr Vajpayee,’’ he added. The Chief Minister said his coalition government was making serious efforts to stop bloodshed in the trouble-torn state. ‘’I have asked people to use their influence, if any, on the misguided youth, who are yielding gun without any cause or justification, to drop it so that a congenial atmosphere is created for resolving the Kashmir inbroglio.’’ —
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Slain soldiers’ kin given selection
letters Jammu, July 12 Among 13 soldiers killed kin of five soldiers belonging to Jammu and Kashmir have been issued appointment letters. They were also given an ex-gratia relief of Rs 5 lakh each. Kin of eight other soldiers, who did not belong to Jammu and Kashmir were given a cash relief of Rs 2 lakh each. Mrs Saito Devi, mother of late Lance Naik Manoj Kumar, broke down when an Army officer called her name for receiving the ex-gratia from the Chief Minister. The 25-year-old widow of Lance Naik Ramesh Chander, Sunita Devi, wept throughout the function. The gesture of the state government to provide employment and ex-gratia to the kin of soldiers within 15 days of the terrorist attack has been appreciated by the people. Among the 13 soldiers killed by terrorists, five belonged to Jammu and Kashmir, four to Himachal Pradesh hailed, three to Punjab and one killed from Kerala. The Mufti called for a change of hearts and mindset of the Pakistan leadership for success of a dialogue to normalise the bilateral relations between the two countries. The restoration of the bus service between the two countries has broken the ice in the Indo-Pakistani relations, but this was not enough and the peace initiatives would pay dividends only with the change in the mindset, he said. The Mufti said the successive prime ministers made serious efforts to normalise relations with Pakistan, but these initiatives did not get adequate response. He hoped that the bold initiatives taken by Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee in this direction will succeed. |
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News Analysis Jammu, July 12 However, the pullout will not affect the NDA government, although the NC has a strength of five in the Lok Sabha. Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Prime Minister, is firmly in the saddle, which is not like 1999, when the Vajpayee government had collapsed with a single NC member, Prof Saifuddin Soz, voting against the confidence motion in the Lok Sabha. A former Chief Minister, Dr Farooq Abdullah, was under tremendous pressure from his NC activists to pull out of the NDA. Their desire has now been fulfilled by his son, Mr Omar Abdullah, who holds the reins of the NC. The NC activists believe that Mr Vajpayee and Mr L.K. Advani sacrificed the NC by holding the last year’s Assembly elections in their own way and manipulated the polling in some constituencies to benefit the Congress. The NC leaders believe that continuing their relations with the NDA would have cost them dear in the coming Lok Sabha elections because the Muslims did not relish the party’s support to the Vajpayee government on the issues of POTA and the communal riots in Gujarat. The NC had joined the NDA in 1998 in a bid to have cordial relations with the Centre, as Dr Abdullah believed that with terrorism having gained roots, a small state like Jammu and Kashmir could not survive without a liberal help from the Centre. Mr Omar Abdullah had recently said the NDA government looked like assisting its rival PDP-led coalition, while it had starved the NC when it had been in power here. He had also resigned as Minister of State for External Affairs on the issue of violence in Gujarat. Eversince returning to power in 1975, the NC has always supported the government at the Centre without party considerations. The 1975 alliance between Sheikh Abdullah and Indira Gandhi had also been short-lived and the NC had then come to power by contesting the mid-term elections without any alliance with the Congress. The honeymoon between the NC and the Congress resumed briefly in 1986, following an accord between Dr Abdullah and Rajiv Gandhi. However, the strangest combination came in 1998 when Dr Abdullah joined hands with the Bharatiya Janata Party led NDA, even though their ideologies were poles apart. |
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PM to chair council
meeting at Srinagar Jammu, July 12 The Chief Ministers of various states will assemble in Srinagar to participate in the three-day meeting which will take up various inter-state disputes. Although the meeting has yet to be formally convened, but highly placed sources said the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) has enquired about the availability of the Chief Ministers concerned for the meeting. Of late Srinagar has been made the venue for some important meetings. It was for the first time after 18 years that the Prime Minister addressed two public meetings in Srinagar during his two-day visit to the valley last month. This was followed by the conclave of the Chief Ministers of the Congress-ruled states which was presided by Ms Sonia Gandhi. The President, Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, not only stayed in Srinagar for two days last month, but moved in the interior of the city. Envoys of about a dozen countries came to the valley to participate in a golf tournament. A large number of parliamentary committees and Central Government organisations are holding their meetings in Srinagar these days. |
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First batch of pilgrims reaches Amarnath Amarnath, July 12 The devotees, who had set off on the pilgrimage on July 9 and trekked through a treacherous route to reach here, offered prayers and took part in rituals before the holy ice “lingam”. “For me there is no emotion parallel to the darshan of the ice lingam, it gives a feeling of being one with God. That is why I come here again and again,” said Sonu Bhardawj of Patiala, on his eighth pilgrimage here, as pilgrims bowed before the sacred “lingam” in reverence for Lord Shiva. Much before dawn, devotees, braving sub-zero temperature, moved out of their tents with torches in hand and took a dip in ice-cold riverines. Shiv “bhakts” from across the subcontinent, from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, men, women, children and sadhus, prayed to Lord Shiva. The devotees arrived here from base camps in Pahalgam and Baltal in two batches till late last night. Their number multiplied with time and they settled themselves in tents put up around the holy cave. The devotees had a special word of praise for security personnel manning the heights and patrolling the entire stretch to the holy cave shrine. While pilgrims from the first two jathas (batches) are having “darshan”, two more such jathas comprising 3,500 devotees each are on their way to the cave. Devotees are arriving at the cave from both Baltal and Chandanwari routes covering arduous tracks of 14 and 32 km, respectively. The crowded “langars” have brought to life the mountains, 14,000 feet above sea-level, which remain uninhabited for almost 11 months. |
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9 students hurt in IED blast Srinagar, July 12 The blast occurred at Kaloosa village at 3.30 pm when the students of Mehboob-ul-Aalam B.Ed College, most of them from outside the state, were returning to Bandipora from a picnic, the sources said. Nine persons — six college students and three members of a family — were injured in the explosion, two of them seriously, the sources said, adding that one of the students was discharged after first aid. Rest of the injured have been identified as Pinky of Rajasthan, Nisha Kumari, Sawataran and Suman (all from Himachal Pradesh), Anu Kumari from Punjab, and Mohammad Yousuf Bhat, his daughter and daughter-in-law were undergoing treatment in different hospitals, the sources said. They said the students and Mr Bhat had been referred to Srinagar for a specialised treatment. Condition of two of the students, Pinky and Suman, was stated to be serious. Mr Bhat’s family had asked for a lift and were travelling in the same vehicle to Bandipora when the blast took place while it was crossing a bridge, the sources said. The sources said investigations revealed that probably an IED, was planted in the rear of the bus by suspected militants. Security forces immediately cordoned off the area and a hunt has been launched to nab the militants, the sources said. No militant outfit has claimed responsibility for the blast so far. Meanwhile, six persons, including three militants and two security personnel, were killed and five injured in separate incidents, while the security forces have recovered a huge cache of explosives in Jammu and Kashmir since last night, a police spokesman said today. Two Al-Badr militants, identified as Mohammad Ashraf of Anantnag and Gulal Rahi of the PoK were killed in an encounter with the security forces at Dhar Kolidi in the Manjakote area of Rajouri district today, the spokesman said. He said the security forces killed an ultra of Jamait-ul-Mujahideen, Abdul Rashid at Kalaroos in Kupwara district this morning and recovered an AK rifle and two hand grenades from him. The spokesman said a policeman was killed and five others— two police personnel, a Special Police Officer and two civilians— were injured in an encounter between militants and a search party at Banola in the Mehdhar sector of Poonch district last night. Body of one Shabir Ahmad Bukhloo was recovered from Khalhar-Sagam in the Kokernag area of Anantnag district today, the spokesman said. Official sources said Bukhloo, an Army jawan, was abducted by militants from his house in the village and later killed. The spokesman said militants killed a civilian in his village at Batola in Doda district today. The BSF recovered 11 kg of explosives, three hand grenades, a wireless set, a detonator and a remote control device during search operations at Frasahaer in the Chandoosa area of Baramula district in north Kashmir today. —
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PDP leader murder accused held Srinagar, July 12 Sheraz Ahmad Reshi was arrested from Samboora village in Pulwama district on July 8, Station House Officer of Pampore police station Narinder Singh Perihar said. Mir, who was elected to the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly from the Pampore constituency in the last year’s Assembly elections, was gunned down by militants on December 20 while he was coming out of a mosque after offering Friday prayers. Reshi was arrested following a tip-off and the pistol used by him to gun down the PDP leader was seized from his possession. With this, the police has solved the second murder case of a political leader in the state since the coalition government assumed office in
November last year. Last month, the police had solved the murder case of former Law Minister Mushtaq Ahmad Lone by arresting four policemen and a militant in Kupwara district of north Kashmir. —
PTI |
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Leh conference from July 21 Srinagar, July 12 Being organised by the Jammu and Kashmir Academy of Art, Culture and Languages in connection with the 11th colloquium of the International Association for Ladakh Studies, Britain the conference will be inaugurated by Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, organisers said here today. The last such conference was held at Oxford in 2001.
Over 200 scholars, including eminent international scholars from 13 countries, including Pakistan, Germany, Itlay, Britain Austria, UK, Switzerland, Australia are participating in the conference. —
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Valley to have film-making infrastructure Gulmarg (Kashmir), July 12 “Bollywood bigwigs and their crew will soon be visiting the Kashmir valley for shooting at Gulmarg, Srinagar, Pahalgam, Kokernag, Sonamargh, Yoousmargh and other places,” State Minister of Tourism Gulam Ahmed Mir said. Bollywood producers and film makers have demanded that they should be provided with infrastructure for film shooting in the state, the state government has decided to set up the infrastructure in Srinagar, Mr Mir, who met the film industry people recently, said. “We want private investors to come forward for building tourism infrastructure in Kashmir and make the equipment available to film makers,” the minister said. “We have also decided to set up a studio in Kashmir,” he added. —
PTI |
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3 held for poppy husk smuggling Jammu, July 12 The three tried to flee on seeing the police but were caught, they said. They have been identified as Jammu and Kashmir armed police constable Fouja Singh and civilians Ghulam Mohammad of Anantnag and Mohammad Iqbal of Pulwama. Investigation revealed that Fouja Singh was involved in narcotics smuggling for quite sometime. He had brought 20 bags of poppy husk in a police truck here from Srinagar on July 10 and kept it in his house in the colony. —
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