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Azad sends alarm
bells ringing Kashmiris dominate in new
ministry Change of guard
meaningless: separatists Mystery of Delhi
blasts deepens |
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| Road to Aman Setu to open soon Srinagar, November 2 The vital road link on the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road between Uri and Kamaan Bridge will be thrown open to light vehicular traffic within a few days, a month after it suffered heavy damages due to the quake early last month. Over 200 judges
transferred
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Azad sends alarm bells ringing in bureaucracy
Jammu, November 2 Mr Azad, who has succeeded Mufti Sayeed, even before being sworn as Chief Minister, had announced that he would not spare any minister, MLA or bureaucrat indulging in corruption. He has ordered that his ministerial colleagues should not allow interference of his relatives in the official functioning. There are indications that in a bid to make the bureaucracy responsive to the aspirations of the common people and check corruption, a sweeping reshuffle of the administration is shortly expected to be ordered by Mr Azad. It is worth mentioning that what is worrying Mr Azad is the stigma that Jammu and Kashmir has earned during the previous regime of being second in corruption after Bihar. The Mufti government had miserably failed to control the rampant corruption. The foremost task for Mr Azad would be to cleanse the administration in a bid to restore the confidence of the public in the administration. Almost all political parties in the state have urged Mr Azad to list elimination of the menace of corruption on the top of his agenda. The immediate test case before Mr Azad will be on the occasion of the Eid festival that would be celebrated on November 4. The general practice in the state is to indirectly bribe the political bosses and bureaucrats during such occasions. A minister, who received sweets worth about Rs 75,000 during a festival last year, is reported to have sold these back to a sweet shop owner at a price of Rs 50,000. There were indications that Mr Azad might overhaul the administration and the police that have become problematic for the common masses. There was rampant corruption in the police set up that was engaged in minting money. Reports of common people being fleeced in various police stations where cases are not registered without greasing the palms of the cops and the traffic policemen generally behaving just like beggars in uniform were general complaints that have not been addressed so far. Due to uncertainty over the continuance of the Mufti-led government in the past few days, the routine transfers in the administration and the police that are ordered before offices move to the winter capital of the state here, were kept in abeyance. Meanwhile, the state unit of the BJP has expressed the hope that Mr Azad would provide a transparent and impartial dispensation to the strife-torn state. In a statement, Prof Hari Om, vice-president of the BJP, hoped that Mr Azad would provide a corruption-free government and downsize him ministry. He demanded that Mr Azad should take immediate steps to implement recommendations of the Wazir Commission and set up a delimitation commission and also regional development councils. The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) that met here today under the chairmanship of Thakur Randhir Singh adopted a resolution urging Mr Azad to curb corruption with a heavy hand and remove the stigma of J&K being second in corruption after Bihar. The NCP also supported a small ministry that could put socio-economic development of the state on a fast track. |
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Kashmiris dominate in new ministry
Jammu, November 2 Including Mr Azad, there are four ministers from Jammu and two from Ladakh in the new ministry. The districts of Udhampur, Rajouri and Poonch in the Jammu division and Kupwara and Pulwama in the valley remain
unrepresented in the ministry. Except Mr Azad himself and two other ministers, Mr Tariq Hameed Qarra and Mr Gulchain Singh Charak, all the 10 others, are old faces of the Mufti regime. No representation has been given to the Kashmiri Pandit and Sikh communities. The only Kashmiri Pandit MLA, Mr Raman Mattoo, who was a minister in the Mufti’s ministry, has not found any place this time. No Sikh was in the previous ministry also. What has come as a surprise was acceptance of a ministerial berth by Mr Mangat Ram Sharma in the Azad ministry, although he was Deputy Chief Minister till this afternoon in the Mufti government. Mr Ghulam Hassan Mir, a close confident of the Mufti and a founder member of the PDP, who was tourism minister, has not been included in the new ministry. He was aspirant for the post of Deputy Chief Minister. The principle of one man-one post has again been deviated by inducting Peerzada Sayeed, PCC chief, in the ministry. The Ladakh region has got complete representation as one minister each from Leh and Kargil districts, Mr Nawang Rigzin Zora and Haji Nissar, have been given a cabinet berth. Mr Azad has made an exception by inducting Mr Gulchain Singh Charak in the ministry. He is a member of the upper house and not an MLA. The Jammu district was a sufferer in the new ministry as against three ministers earlier; it has got only one in the new ministry. The Panthers Party has been kept out of the new ministry. |
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Change of guard
meaningless: separatists
Srinagar, November 2 Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, chairman of the moderate faction of Hurriyat Conference, described the taking over of Mr Ghulam Nabi Azad as an “internal issue” of the government. He said this would not lead to any “final settlement” of the long-pending Kashmir problem. The hardline APHC leader, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, said: “The change of hands, leaders and personalities does not make any difference at the ground level”. The basic issue of Kashmir remained unattended. He held that “draconian laws” like the Disturbed Areas Act and the Special Powers Act gave a “free hand” to security personnel. Custodial killings and illegal detention remained the order of the day. He expressed concern at the “failure” of the government to reach out to the and needy in quake-affected areas of Uri and Tangdhar. Senior separatist leader Shabir Ahmad Shah of the Democratic freedom party (DFP) said the change of guard “does not matter to us. We are for azadi”. He claimed that these decisions since 1947 were taken by Delhi only to install its own administrators in Jammu and Kashmir. He held that these changes took place by dint of “farcical elections” and unfulfilled promises, like the “healing touch” policy of former Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed. Even the Mufti was not aware of the change until the decision was announced in Delhi, Mr Shah added.
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Mystery of Delhi blasts deepens
Jammu, November 2 The Hizbul Mujahideen, the Al Badr and the Al Mansoorian outfits have stated that their activists were not involved in the blasts. This denial came after three days and the Lashkar-e-Toiba too has disowned responsibility for the blasts when security experts had claimed that Islamic Inquilabi Group, which has owned responsibility for the explosions, was a wing of the Lashkar. In the past more than one outfit would own responsibility for any gun or grenade attacks simply to register their presence. In the case of Delhi blasts militant outfits, which have been found involved in series of blasts in Jammu and Kashmir, have remained on the defensive. There has been no competition among them for owning responsibility for the blasts. In fact the Islamic Inquilabi group has never been in the limelight during the past several years. It hit the headlines when militants demanded the release of one of its leaders, Zulfikar, now lodged in Kot Bhalwal jail in Jammu, in exchange for passengers of an Indian Airlines plane that had been hijacked from Kathmandu to Kandahar on December 24, 1999. At that time five top militants, including Masood Azhar, chief of the Jaish-e-Mohammad, were released but Zulfikar had to remain behind bars. Since then the Inquilabi group has shrunk in size and its activists have not been found active anywhere in the state. Security experts and political observers here are of the opinion that the Delhi blasts were triggered by militants, who had sneaked into India from across the border in recently but those responsible for it had links with some outfits operating in Jammu and Kashmir. These experts attribute denial of involvement in the blasts by the Lashkar-e-Toiba, the Hizbul Mujahideen, the Al Mansoorian and the Al Badr to the directions given by agencies in Pakistan. According to them, when the Pakistan government, especially President Pervez Musharraf, realised the implications of such blasts on the ongoing dialogue and confidence-building measures instructions were issued to those rebel outfits, known for their pro-Pakistan leanings, to disown responsibility for the blasts. In support of their contention these experts say that the four militant outfits should have disowned involvement in the serial blasts at the most by Sunday evening when the Indian investigating agencies had started suspecting that roots of the blasts lay in Kashmir. The militant groups started disowning responsibility from Tuesday onwards and that too after Gen Pervez Musharraf talked to Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, on telephone conveying condemnation of the blasts and repeating his assurance of the Pakistan government’s cooperation in the investigations. But those, who believe that the control of militancy not only in the hands of one Pakistani official agency argue that had it been the case militants would have not carried a blast on the Nowgaam bypass in Srinagar on Wednesday in which six persons were killed. And the pro-Pak Jash-e-Mohammad has claimed responsibility for the blast.
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Road to Aman Setu to open soon
Srinagar, November 2 While the most difficult stretches on the 17.5 km-long road to Kamaan Bridge from Uri have been cleared for traffic, the remaining 1 km-stretch is to take two or three days, Brig S.S. Dasaka, Chief Engineer, Beacon Project, BRO, said here yesterday. Talking to mediapersons, he said the main challenge was early re-opening of the road that connects to Muzaffarabad. Giving details of the damage caused to the road, he said only light vehicles with relief material would be allowed on the road. This would be for specified time periods to be decided by the Beacon Project in consultation with the Army. The governments of India and Pakistan have decided to open five points including Kamaan, along the LoC from November 7 for carrying relief for the quake-affected in PoK. The Uri-Kamaan Bridge road link was upgraded only last year at a cost of about Rs 7 crore. This was done to facilitate the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service, which began on April 7 this year. The estimated cost of the damage caused to the road by the earthquake was about Rs 6 crore. The Beacon planed to upgrade the road to NH-IA (double-laned) at a cost of Rs 37.6 crore by March 2009.
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Srinagar, November 2 This was for the first time in the state’s judicial history that such a major shake-up has been effected, which apart from 31 principal district and sessions judges and additional district and sessions judges, also shifted 45 chief judicial magistrates and sub-judges, besides 83 munsiff magistrates. The order to this effect was issued on October 31 by the Registrar-General, M.Y. Mir, an official spokesman said yesterday. — PTI
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