Srinagar, December 13
A powerful earthquake rocked Jammu and Kashmir early this morning creating panic among the people, particularly those already displaced in parts of north Kashmir due to the October 8 devastating quake. Most panicked people in Uri and Tangdhar and in other parts of the valley came out of their tenements and houses.

The earthquake, having its epicentre near Kabul in Afghanistan and measuring 6.8 at Richter Scale, was felt at 3.17 am rattling windows of houses across the valley. There was, however, no loss or damage reported from any part of the valley, officials here said.

Some houses damaged due to the quake on October 8 last developed further cracks, reports here said. There were no casualty so far, a senior officer said, adding that any more damages to the already damaged houses was a matter of assessment that was yet to be made.

The quake today follows a series of tremors after the devastating quake of October 8 in which over 1,300 persons lost their lives in Uri, Tangdhar and parts of Poonch district.

Meanwhile, reports from Poonch indicated that many houses in the town and the adjoining villages of Digwar, Khari, Karmara, Ajot and Chilas had developed fresh cracks. The earlier earthquake had knocked down a large number of houses in these villages.

A bulletin of the US Geological Survey (USGS) said the quake had its epicentre in the Hindukush region of Afghanistan.

Seismologists said although J&K experienced more than a hundred aftershocks of the October 8 earthquake, but the one this morning was a full-fledged tremor. The earlier aftershocks measured anything between 4.5 to 5 on the Richter Scale.

Hoshiarpur and its surrounding areas also experienced tremors of mild intensity at about 3.00 a.m. early this morning. No loss of life and property had been reported from the district so far.

Jammu, December 13
APHC Chairman, Molvi Umar Farooq has decided to take into confidence members of the executive committee and the general council while finalising the amalgam’s next strategy after his meeting with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.

It is in this connection that the meeting of the two bodies of the APHC has been convened in Srinagar on December 14 where Molvi Farooq will brief party members on the discussion he had with the Pakistani President and on the outcome of the OIC meet with reference to the Kashmir issue.

Sources said today that Mirwaiz had a meeting with Musharraf on the sidelines of the OIC meet in Saudi Arabia recently where they discussed the third option the establishment of self-governance for the settlement of the Kashmir issue. Before leaving for Mecca to attend the OIC meet, Molvi Umar Farooq had indicated that he would meet Pervez and find out the contours of the self-rule which had been mooted by Islamabad.

Not only this, the APHC Chairman planned to seek the opinion of the members of the executive committee and the general council on the strategy it should adopt for motivating New Delhi on granting permission to the APHC team to visit the earthquake-affected areas in PoK and on arranging a date for another round of talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

The APHC leadership does not endorse Mr Geelani’s views in which he had opposed any third option for settling the dispute. A former APHC Chairman, Prof Abdul Gani Bhat, told this correspondent today: “We do not support Mr Geelani’s idea that for settling the Kashmir issue there were only two options, either to remain with India or to get incorporated with Pakistan.”

Another senior APHC leader Molvi Abbas Ansari said after the meeting of the executive committee and the general council, it would be clear that time had come when the APHC leaders should be allowed to play the role of a “bridge between India and Pakistan.” He said this “can be facilitated if our meeting with Mr Manmohan Singh is fixed as early as possible so that Molvi Umar can submit the details of his discussion with the Pakistani President for the debate on solutions”.

Jammu, December 13
Consumers here are facing an acute shortage of cooking gas refills for which they have to wait for several days. There were reports that certain LPG dealers to earn an extra buck have created the “artificial shortage”.

Consumers complain that they were being made to wait for a long time before the refills were supplied to them.

While the dealers claim that the LPG was in short supply by the respective companies, but the oil company officials, when contacted, said that there was no shortage from their side. However, certain dealers on payment of premium were reportedly providing the consumers in many cases refills without any delay.

A housewife in Trikuta Nagar cried that she had booked an LPG refill with a Gandhi Nagar based Indane gas dealer on November 12 but she has not yet been delivered the gas cylinder.

An HP gas dealer in Gandhi Nagar was making the consumers wait for seven to 10 days for a cylinder. The petroleum companies have their own LPG bottling plants here.

There were complaints that the oil companies have given LPG dealership to certain such establishments that do not possess adequate manpower to handle the daily supplies.