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Jammu, April 3 The poll campaign in the border belts of Poonch and Rajouri, vital segments of the Jammu Lok Sabha constituency, is yet to pick up. Except for flags and posters of the BJP, which have appeared in several areas of the two districts, poll fever is missing with the two other main contesting parties, the Congress and the National Conference, yet to launch their campaign.
EC to file affidavit on surrogate ads
tomorrow
Capt among 10 killed in J&K
K.L. Saigal centenary celebrations from
today
Vigilance body busts construction works scam
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Rash driving goes
unchecked
Two file papers for Srinagar seat
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BJP makes extra efforts in Poonch,
Rajouri
Jammu, April 3 In fact, the BJP has opened election offices in six areas of Poonch and Rajouri. The state BJP president, Dr Nirmal Singh, who is the party candidate for the Jammu seat, spent three days in Poonch recently and from today the focus of the BJP campaign will be on Rajouri district. The BJP drew a blank in the seven Assembly segments in the 2002 Assembly poll whereas the NC won three seats in Poonch district and two of the four in Rajouri district. The Congress remained content with the Sunderbani Assembly seat. One thing that, at this juncture, favours the BJP in these two Muslim-dominated districts is the way the party candidate, Dr Nirmal Singh, has pleaded the case of Pahari-speaking people demanding Scheduled Tribe status. At present the Congress candidate, Mr Madan Lal Sharma, and the NC nominee, Mr Surjit Singh Slathia, have concentrated on the Akhnoor, Jammu city, Bishna, R.S. Pora, Samba and Vijaypur belts where the BJP is yet to make its presence felt. “We are on the top in the three Assembly segments of Jammu city and we are keen on securing the support of voters in areas which have been voting in favour of the Congress and the NC,” a BJP spokesman said. However, both the NC and the Congress have decided to launch their campaign in Poonch and Rajouri districts from the next week. |
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EC to file affidavit on surrogate ads
tomorrow
Jammu, April 3 Mr Tandon and Mr Gopalaswami, who were talking to mediapersons here today after completing a three-day tour of the state, said the election commission would file an affidavit on the surrogate advertisement issue in the Supreme Court on Monday. Replying to a question whether passing of the controversial daughters’ Bill by the Assembly on March 5 was violation of the model code for the elections, the Election Commissioners said there was no binding on the legislature and it was competent to pass any Bill. Mr Tandon said specific complaints of misuse of official machinery for election purposes had been received against four ministers. These would be examined and suitable action would be taken in case these were found to be correct. The Deputy Commissioners concerned have been asked to submit their reports regarding these complaints within two days. Various political parties have made several other complaints of gross violation of election code against the government, they said. Complaints of misuse of official vehicles and their staff by ministers have been received. He said several measures had been taken to ensure free and fair elections in Jammu and Kashmir. A special election observer would be deployed here, while two observers have been posted in each of the constituencies. 50 per cent of the staff on polling duty would be from within the respective district and rest from outside. Mr Tandon said a special observer would go to Leh and Kargil to verify the complaints pertaining to certain shortcomings in the voter lists. He said the state government had been asked to provide security to each candidate on equitable basis so that all contenders had a level playing field. The district presidents of every recognised political party would be provided security cover during the elections. The state electoral officer would get the voter slips delivered in every household to prevent bogus polling. As many as 62.07 per cent photo identity cards have been prepared so far and the Deputy Commissioners have been asked to step up the campaign and achieve the target of 74 per cent coverage. As many as 9,500 electronic voting machines have been provided here for being used in all the 7,217 polling booths in which election would be held in four phases. |
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Srinagar, April 3 Heavily-armed militants opened fire and lobbed grenades on a 47 Rashtriya Rifles patrol party in Check-Keegam village in the Natnoosa area, causing injuries to nine personnel, the sources said. The injured were rushed to a hospital where two of them, Captain R D Singh and Lance Naik Sanjiv Kumar, succumbed. The sources said a militant was killed and three securitymen injured in an encounter in the Bandipora area of Baramula district in the north Kashmir. An AK rifle, three magazines and an under barrel grenade launcher were seized from the slain militant. In another encounter, a police spokesman said security forces killed a militant at Dalwas in Anantnag district in the south Kashmir. An AK rifle, three magazines were seized from him. Mr Imtiyaz Ahmad Ganai, a resident of Natnoosa village, who was abducted by militants few days ago on the charge of being an informer, was brutally killed. While his severed head was recovered from a nearby forest in Kupwara district today, his torso was yet to be found, the spokesman said. The spokesman said militants shot dead Mohammed Younis Dar in his house at Zawoora in Pulwama district last night. Dar was killed for his alleged links with security forces. The police found the body of Basharat Najar from the Dheda area of Udhampur district today. The deceased was abducted by militants along with his father Mohammad Abdullah Najar from Janori village on March 9. While the body of his father was found the same day, his whereabouts were not known. Ultras also raided the house of a Congress activist Latief Ahmad Malik in Chontipora village of Verinag in Anantnag district last night and severely beat him up, but they fled the scene when his family raised an alarm, the spokesman said. He said militants shot dead two persons, Alif Di and Farooq Ahmad, in their houses at Navkot-Banihal and Marmat in Doda district in Jammu last night. Meanwhile, the spokesman said security forces apprehended Ashiq Hussain Beig from Kundoora in the Beerwah area of Badgam district and seized a pistol and two magazines from him. Beigh is being questioned, the spokesman added.
— PTI |
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K.L. Saigal centenary celebrations from
today
Jammu, April 3 The J and K government has announced that the year-long celebrations would be organised to revive the Jammu connection of the great musician. Saigal was born on April 4,1904 in a house near the Jain Bazar in the old city. His father, Amar Chand Saigal, was a tehsildar in the court of the then ruler of the state. His mother, Kesar Bai, was a religious woman and she introduced Saigal to music. Saigal’s father belonged to Jalandhar in Punjab, but remained here in a rented house because of his service. The then administrator of the Jammu Municipality, Mr K.B. Jandial, five years ago got some facelifting done of the locality in which Saigal spent his childhood. A marble with history of Saigal inscribed on it has been installed at the entry of the lane in which he lived. Saigal later migrated to Mumbai where he acted in 36 films, 29 Hindi and seven Bengali. He sang 150 songs in films and more than 100 non-film songs. He sung not only in Hindi and Bengali, but also Persian, Punjabi, Pushto, Urdu and Tamil. |
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Vigilance body busts construction works scam
Srinagar, April 3 The SVO has scuttled an attempt by a group of 50 persons, including four government employees, two of them engineers, and a group of contractors to siphon off huge sums of money from the exchequer by preparing fictitious records for works which have either not been executed or partly executed, its spokesman said. “Immediate scrutiny of records revealed that an amount of Rs 1.5 crore had been booked as expenditure by the Truck Terminal Division on false grounds,” he said. This came to the fore when an SVO team, acting on a tip-off raided the house of a junior engineer, Abdul Majid, at Harwan on the outskirts of Srinagar. However, he said, no one had been arrested so far in this connection. The SVO is compiling records from various treasuries and will verify non-executed works for which payments have been drawn to bring to book the guilty officials, the spokesman added. —
PTI |
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Come poll, parties ‘discover’
border migrants
Devipur (Akhnoor), April 3 Leaders of various political parties are now visiting these tented colonies almost daily to woo the voters. The authorities suddenly woke up from deep slumber and summoned the male migrant members to Akhnoor yesterday to release the monthly dislocation allowance that was pending for the past five months. The quota of rations was also being issued to them after about six months, they said. The migrants understand that all this is being done to placate them because polling for the Jammu Lok Sabha seat would be held in the first phase on April 20. A migrant, Jaswinder Singh, said that no leader had met them after the Assembly elections in 2002. Suddenly, several leaders had started visiting the border migrant camps because of the Lok Sabha elections. He said the migrants voted en bloc for the Congress in the Assembly elections, but this time they would be cautious because their experience had been bitter. Bhag Singh said that residents of more than 40 border villages had been living in tents here for about six years and the successive governments had failed to provide them a decent living. He along with other migrants was critical that the central and state governments were taking care of only Kashmiri Pandit migrants and no one was bothered about “our” miseries. The migrants said they were not interested in living on government dole as most of them were well to do earlier and had agricultural land near the border where they were not in a position to return as the fields had been mined by the Army. Moreover, they would not trust Pakistan that did not spare the civilian population while shelling Indian positions. Swaran Singh lamented that the government had not paid even a single penny to the border migrants whose houses were destroyed due to shelling from across the border. On the other hand, the authorities were quick in releasing compensation for damaged homes to Kashmiri migrants. He said their fields had turned into jungles, as these had not been ploughed for about six years. He said the kerosene quota had not been released in the camps for six months and the supply of rations was irregular. Swaran Singh said the border migrants were being discriminated against even in the matter of payment of the monthly migrant allowance. They were being paid almost half of what was being given to Kashmiri migrants. They failed to understand why the government had adopted different rules for the border migrants and the Kashmiri Pandit migrants. The other state governments had also announced incentives only for Kashmiri migrants and their children, they pointed out. |
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Rash driving goes
unchecked
Jammu, April 3 Mehroof is among the 19 of the critically injured passengers who were airlifted here this morning for treatment at Government Medical College Hospital. This was the second major accident in Poonch district within six days. Thirty two persons had lost their lives in an accident earlier this week. The transport department and the traffic police have come under severe criticism following these accidents as these organisations have failed to check rash driving and overloading of passenger buses. The bus involved in yesterday’s accident was carrying nearly 90 passengers against its capacity of 35. People in the rural areas have been complaining of unlicensed persons driving passenger vehicles. However, the authorities have failed to take action in this regard. There are allegations influential transporters prevent any action against their drivers indulging in rash driving. The transport department has also come under cloud following allegations that there is a price tag for each “plum posting”. Also, driving licences are being issued indiscriminately for commercial vehicles, it is alleged. The traffic police has failed to check overloading not only in the rural areas, but also within the city limits of Jammu and Srinagar, where mini-bus operators commonly overload in their vehicles. |
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Two file papers for Srinagar seat
Srinagar, April 3 An official spokesman said Mr Bashir Ahmad Kathoo (National Panthers Party) and Ms Mehbooba Shadab (Independent) filed nominations for Srinagar seat before the returning officer at the Deputy Commissioner’s office in Badgam. — UNI |
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