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Mufti’s heart goes out to quake-hit across LoC
Families across LoC anxious about kin
Relief operations resume as weather clears
Quake injured at mercy of the elements
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Security lapse led to attack on battalion HQ
Woman’s appeal to Red Cross
46 passengers still untraced
CPM leader shot in Anantnag
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Mufti’s heart goes out to quake-hit across LoC
Srinagar, October 17 The Mufti, who spoke to the Prime Minister from here today, said the devastation caused by the earthquake was a grave human tragedy and everybody should rise above political considerations in reaching out to the affected people on either side of the LoC. The baggage of the past should neither prevent offering humanitarian assistance nor its acceptance, The Mufti added, according to an official spokesman. The Chief Minister said the Prime Minister was forthcoming to the suggestion of providing relief to the quake-hit across the LoC as it was easier and less time consuming to reach out to the affected areas from this side than from Pakistan. The Chief Minister urged President Musharraf to positively respond to the Indian offer so that the victims of this grave tragedy could be provided the much needed help without further loss of time. He said the humanitarian assistance would go well with the current atmosphere of amity and friendship. The Chief Minister said the damage to life and property caused by the earthquake across the LoC was of a vast magnitude and people on this side wanted to help their brethren there. He said the extent of the destruction demanded that “we rise above political and other considerations and see how best the help reaches to the victims”. He said he had been approached by various voluntary agencies and the general public who wanted to reach out to the earthquake victims across the LoC. Pleading for allowing such relief groups access across the LoC, the Chief Minister said the response to the human tragedy should be guided by humanitarian and not by any political or other consideration. The Chief Minister also impressed upon the Prime Minister the immediate need for restoring the telephone link between Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistan so that anxious families on both sides could contact each other and get to know the welfare of their relatives. The Mufti said the prompt and positive response India showed towards the quake victims in Pakistan had found wide appreciation among people in Jammu and Kashmir and the country as a whole. |
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Families across LoC anxious about kin
Srinagar, October 17 Many such families have been able to come to know about the fate of their relatives in PoK, through secondary sources, there are still many more moving from pillar to post to get any reliable information. Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, chairman of the moderate APHC here on Friday appealed to India from the Jamia Masjid to allow Kashmiris to cross the LoC for the sake of humanity. That will help divided families to know whereabouts and help their relatives across facing devastation and destruction. Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed had also hinted at this when he asked the Government of India to restore the damaged Uri-Muzaffarabad road and telephone links between the two sides. JKLF Chairman Mohammad Yasin Malik here last week announced that he would visit Muzaffarabad with relief. Even the opening of the trunk call facility to the Muzaffarabad, as announced by the authorities here on Saturday, has not helped many people like Mohammad Abdullah Bhat of Lal Bazar locality here. The 70-year old Bhat and his wife, Mrs Fatima, had been among the lucky ones when they boarded the historic first bus service to Muzaffarabad here on April 7 this year. It was after 16 years that they could see their daughter, Wazeera Bano, after she married one of their relatives on the other side of the LoC. They had returned by the second bus service from Muzaffarabad to this place after a fortnight. “We do not know anything from Muzaffarabad. We have also sent an e-mail to PTV”, a feeble Bhat said in his house again trying to visit a telephone exchange to mature his call to their relatives. His words fail him to support his ideas as tears roll down his thin and skeletal face embedded in the wrinkles at the fag end of his life. “The telephone number of Muzaffarabad that we were given is inaccessible, and we are told that the number does not exist”, he said. That was the only hope of Bhat and his family to get into touch with their relatives across, though his daughter with her husband and brother are reported safe at their workplace in Karachi. They had left Muzaffarabad only a couple of days before the earthquake shook the region. Bhat craves to see for himself the plight of his relatives including Faiz Akbar Khan in the PoK capital, with whom he and his wife had spent memorable days during the April visit. “I would myself foot the distance to that place, but I cannot do for my old age and thereby weakness”, he comments. He hurriedly adds that he would do so with a proper permission from the authorities like he was given prior to his boarding the first bus to Muzaffarabad. He, however, “cannot afford to undertake the journey” via Wagah that would be costlier, he laments. The only hope for such divided families across the valley is the incoming phone calls that may be from Islamabad or abroad. |
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Relief operations resume as weather clears
Srinagar, October 17 Air-dropping operations resumed this afternoon and would continue as long as the weather
permitted, a defence spokesman said here. The Army and the Air Force were forced to suspend sorties on Saturday evening due to bad weather caused by heavy rainfall and snow in the upper reaches that triggered landslides, severing road links to many affected villages. However, road links to many villages remained cut off as fresh landslides were making clearing operations arduous. The Uri-Salamabad road had been blocked by a landslide. Many smaller roads leading to remote villages were also blocked, thus hampering the relief operations for the time being, the spokesman said. Army men, the state government and NOGs had been working relentlessly to clear the roads at the earliest so that ground relief could be provided to the affected people, he added. “Most of the relief material is being stacked in Tangdhar town for the time being. As soon as the roads to inner villages are cleared, it will be despatched to the needy”, he added. The upper reaches received about six inches to one foot of snowfall while other areas had heavy rains, triggering fresh landslides. However, the Border Roads Organisation (BRO), which was responsible for the maintenance of majority of the roads, pressed into
service its sophisticated machines to clear the landslides. “We were able to clear almost all roads blocked by fresh landslides,” an official said. Reports received here said tents were damaged due to rain and snow at several places. However, there was no report of any casualty. Meanwhile, Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed said the state government had stepped up relief operations and geared up the administration to meet the situation in the face of the bad weather. The focus, he said, was on providing shelter to the affected people before the winter. He said the first instalment of cash relief to victims for rebuilding their houses would be disbursed on Wednesday. He appreciated the assistance given by the Central Government. He said the corporate India had also come forward in aid of the victims.
— UNI |
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Quake injured at mercy of the elements
Poonch, October 17 Patients have been lodged in tented wards that have been pitched in an open space outside the collapsed hospital building by the Army. It is likely to take a long time to rebuild the hospital as a sum of Rs 25 crore is required for this purpose and till then there is no alternative but to continue to make the hospital functional in tents. What is worrying is that the winter has set in and the patients are virtually undergoing a torture due to icy winds that blow, particularly after sunset. The over-100-year-old hospital building that was made of earthquake-friendly material did not withstand the quake and crumbled down. Operating theatres, general wards, OPD, stores and other establishments of the hospital are now in ruins as the roof has collapsed. Mohammad Rafiq suffered a fracture on his leg when a landslide triggered by the quake hit him while he was going to school at Mandi, about 35 km from here. He shivers in the tent where doctors are treating him, his father says. A separate tent is there to serve as the female ward. However, womenfolk are facing problems as the ward is open and there is no privacy for the patients. The OPD is functioning in the veranda of a nearby building, while the x-ray machine has been made functional in a damaged room. The medicine store has suffered a total loss and the equipment in the operating theatres has also got destroyed. There was an influx of earthquake victims in the hospital as most of the other health institutions in the area have suffered damage due to the quake. The nearby primary health centres at Ajote and those in Mendhar, Surankot and other places in the district have also been damaged. Almost all primary health centres have developed cracks, which has resulted in diversion of patients to the district hospital here. It may take quite some time to put the medical services back on the rails in this earthquake hit district. The health authorities have sought a grant to Rs 25 crore to rebuild the hospital, but have urged the government to immediately provide a sum of Rs 1 crore to enable them to get the cracked portions of the building repaired so that the indoor patients could be shifted in the wards. The residential quarters of the doctors have also collapsed or become unsafe for living. Those injured due to the earthquake are all praise for Army doctors who fanned out in the devastated area and swung into action to provide succour to them. |
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Fresh aftershocks shake J&K
Srinagar, October 17 The first aftershock occurred at 0336 hrs while the second tremor struck at about 1500 hrs, Met Department officials here said. However, no casualties have been reported so far. Reports from the
worst-hit Uri and Tangdhar areas said the tremor caused terror-stricken survivors to scramble out of their tents and make-shift
shelters in alarm. — UNI |
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Ministers contribute month’s salary
Srinagar, October 17 The ministers have also advised all MLAs and MLCs to make their contribution in the CM’s relief fund accordingly, officials said today. — PTI
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No tax on trucks carrying relief
Srinagar, October 17 This was decided at a meeting of the Natural Calamity Relief Fund Committee here this
evening. — UNI |
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Security lapse led to attack on battalion HQ
Jammu, October 17 According to senior officers of two security agencies, it was “sheer laxity” not only on the part of the Army but of the police also. They said even after the two major fidayeen attacks — one in the Kaluchak Army cantonment area on May 14, 2002 in which 23 Army personnel and their family members and seven bus passengers were killed and the other at Tanda Army unit in Akhnoor on July 22, 2003 in which eight soldiers and one officer were killed — the authorities concerned had not taken necessary measures to secure the Kathua Battalion headquarters from such attacks. Interestingly, one side of the headquarters only had a barbed wire fence from where the attackers resorted to indiscriminate fire. It had no guard post to prevent militants from targeting those in the complex. When the attack was launched, groups of Army men had started entering the headquarters after morning training. Security experts believed that the entry and exit of soldiers required to be guarded against any armed attack. |
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Woman’s appeal to Red Cross
Jammu, October 17 In an appeal to the Red Cross, Mrs Tandon has said that her husband went to the Pakistan occupied Kashmir on October 6, two days before the earthquake, to meet his relatives. His brother, Mr Jagdish Lal Tandon and nephew, Mr Subhash, who also accompanied him to Muzaffarabad, were injured seriously and have been airlifted to Islamabad for treatment. She has said that her husband was staying with a relative in the Hattian Dupatta village on the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad when the earthquake struck. |
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46 passengers still untraced
Srinagar, October 17 Only whereabouts of eight passengers of the Caravan-e-Aman have been known so far while 46 of them, who had gone to Muzaffarabad on various dates, were still missing, Regional Passport Officer
S.L. Sriramalu said. — PTI |
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CPM leader shot in Anantnag
Srinagar, October 17 They said the gunmen shot at and critically wounded CPM leader Ghulam Nabi Ganai at Anantnag. He was immediately shifted to hospital where he was declared brought dead. Ganai had unsuccessfully contested Assembly election against the ruling Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti from Pahalgam constituency. The state secretary of the CPM Mohammad Yousuf Targami has strongly condemned the killing of Ganai.
— UNI |
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Group Captain Kler takes command
Jammu, October 17 He has replaced Group Captain R. Shankar, who has been posted at Delhi as group commander of the NCC. |
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