Samba, May 16
Finally admitting that a few militants may have infiltrated into the Indian side in Samba sector last week, A.K. Mitra, director general (DG), Border Security Force (BSF), today said another 1,000 BSF personnel would be deployed on the international border.

DG Mitra added that modern gadgets would also be utilised to boost surveillance at the border. He also did not rule out the involvement of Pakistani rangers in the intrusion.

DG Mitra also visited the international border and examined the spot from where militants involved in the Samba encounter had sneaked into the Indian territory.

Interacting with mediapersons, DG Mitra said they would equip the force with night vision devices, thermal imagers and early warning systems. He added that an order of 22 thermal imagers had already been placed. He said they were also demolishing “bundhs” and cleaning up wild growth across the fence so as to have a clear view of any movement across the border.

DG Mitra said the BSF was hard pressed for resources. “Many of our Battalions have been sent on election duty and additional personnel from our training wing will be deployed on the international border.”

On the BSF's outright rejection of any infiltration last week, DG Mitra said they had no reason to believe that intrusion had taken place. He said footprints were only spotted till the fence and no other agency confirmed that militants had sneaked into the Indian side.

He said the last week's infiltration bid would serve as a lesson for the BSF. “Earlier, we thought our fence could not be breached, but this incident has proved us wrong. No fence is impregnable,” DG Mitra added.

He denied that they had any inputs on the possibility of infiltration in the area. “We didn't have any specific inputs that our area will be used for infiltration,” he said.

DG Mitra revealed that while the militants had made seven infiltration bids last year, four such attempts had been reported this year till now. However, he did not rule out the involvement of Pakistani rangers in last week's infiltration bid. Answering another query, he said whenever there was a major event coming up in the state, the level of violence went up in the state.

Earlier, G.S. Virk, BSF DIG, Jammu, said “bundhs” were now being raised on the home side, which would help the force to step up surveillance on the border. He said “bundhs” on the other side of the fence gave intruders an opportunity to stealthily move closer to the fence, observe “nakas” and chalk out their strategy.

Samba, May 16
BSF DG A.K. Mitra said the BSF was ready to protect the farmers owning land across the fencing on the Indian side of the international border if they wanted to resume cultivation in the area.

During his visit to Samba sector today, Mitra said a lot of land was lying unused in the area and the ongoing realignment of fence would bring in 4,000 acres of land where the farmers could cultivate various crops. He said the farmers were hesitant to do the farming in the area in the past. BSF DIG, Jammu, G.S. Virk also said that the farmers would be allowed to cultivate crops right up to zero line. He said during the realignment work, any fencing located beyond 300 metres of the international border is being shifted to within 100 metres of the border. He said the work on a 41-km stretch had started about nine months back and it had already been completed on about 10 km stretch.

Farmers in Samba had suffered huge losses in the past owing to the proximity of their land to the international border. Two civilians were killed and 20 head of cattle had perished in the firing by Pakistani troops about six years back. 

Srinagar, May 16
The Hurriyat Conference is busy carrying its programme to the grassroots. The Mirwaiz-led separatist body, which opened district level offices across Kashmir, would be opening such offices at the tehsil and block levels, as part of the process launched by senior separatist leader Shabir Ahmad Shah earlier this year.

Shabir Shah, during the opening of a district office at Shopian in south Kashmir earlier this week, said the Hurriyat would continue its “political struggle” until the resolution of the Kashmir issue.

“We want to accomplish our mission by carrying the programme to the grassroots,” Shah said adding, “Ours is a political movement. It is not for concessions and power.”

The mainstream or the pro-India political parties had resorted to several other means towards elections and concessions during the past six decades, he said. But this had been a futile exercise, he added.

Shah alleged that India had been adopting various measures to divert attention from the Kashmir issue and giving a wrong impression to the outside world. He held that due to such policies the Kashmir youth had no other alternative than to pick up the gun, inviting global attention.

Referring to the ensuing Santosh Trophy championship, Shah claimed this was only to show to the outside world that the people of Kashmir were engaged in sports activities instead of “azaadi”.

Reiterating demand for tripartite talks, Shah dared India to hold a referendum in Kashmir.

Meanwhile, hardline Hurriyat Conference chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani has already called for an election boycott and planned to launch door-to-door campaign. Though various other separatist organisations have extended support to Geelani’s call, the moderate faction seems to be non-committal in actively participating in the campaign.

Jammu, May 16
With a spurt in militant attacks just ahead of annual Amarnath yatra, the Central government has given its consent to the deployment of 70 companies of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) to put in place a foolproof security apparatus for pilgrims.

According to highly-placed sources, the state government in a communiqué to the union home ministry had requested it to provide adequate companies for the two-month-long pilgrimage.

They said recent disturbing developments — infiltration bids by Pakistan militants in Bainglad area followed by the Samba encounter, Jaipur serial blasts and then ceasefire violation in north Kashmir — forced the coalition government to request the Centre for foolproof security arrangements.

The annual pilgrimage begins June 18. Four to five lakh pilgrims visit cave shrine of lord Shiva located in south Himalayas every year.

The companies would remain in the state till elections were held, they added.

A senior police officer said, “In the backdrop of recent attacks, the state had sought 70 companies of the paramilitary force.” Meanwhile, the Jammu and Kashmir Police would utilise all its resources to provide security to the visiting pilgrims, he added.

“In the past militants had attacked the pilgrims and being the election year they had already made their intentions clear. Hence, we cannot afford to take chance with the security of pilgrims,” said the police officer.

He divulged that a three-tier security grid comprising of the police, the CRPF and the Army would be put in place during the upcoming yatra.

Sources said, earlier the police had sought 63 companies but following spurt in violence activities the state then dashed off a fresh communiqué requesting the Centre to increase the strength to 70 companies.

A senior Army officer said, this time around Army choppers may also be pressed into service to keep surveillance on the track.

Intelligence sources said, security forces have been asked to remain alert as nearly 800 militants in different launching pads across the International Border were waiting for an opportune time to cross into the Indian territory.

This time around militants would try to sneak into the Indian territory from the IB, they added.

“Not only this, the security forces have intercepted wireless messages of Lashkar-e-Taiba militants, who were asked by their mentors to target the pilgrimage in election year so as to draw international attention,” they said.

The ISI, Pakistan’s secret agency, has asked different militant outfits to hit hard this year to show the world that the ‘jehad is still on’, they added.

However, to plug ‘porous’ openings on the International Border in Samba sector, the BSF has posted 1,000 more troopers.

Sources in the police said, besides the CRPF and the Army, the Jammu and Kashmir Police would deploy 30 companies.

Before pilgrimage gets underway, the security forces along with the police would thoroughly sift through roads and track leading to the cave shrine, they added.

Rajouri, May 16
Former chief minister and National Conference patron Farooq Abdullah has urged the people to stay united and reject all such nefarious designs, which may prove fatal for the unity and integrity of the state.

The NC patron, addressing a public meeting at Thanamandi here yesterday, said attempts were being made by some politically-vested elements to divide people of the state for their short-term interests.

“They are dividing the people in the name of ‘Paharis and Gujjars’, ‘Jammuites and Kashmiries’ and ‘Hindu and Muslims’,” he said, which according to him was not only unfortunate but also even fatal for the composite culture of the state.

“We believe in equitable development of all the three regions, community and caste,” he said. “The National Conference has always stood for secular values and will remain committed for socio-economic and political development of all the sections of the society and shall fight such divisive forces who are hell bent upon to create wedge between Gujjar and Paharis.”

The NC, he said, believed that unity and peace were the basic need for the economic development of the state and the party should fight for the cause of Pahari and Gujjars.

He said the condition of the remote areas of Rajouri was very miserable.

Poonch, May 16
Former chief minister and National Conference patron Farooq Abdullah today launched a scathing attack on the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) for “hoodwinking” the people of state with their hollow slogans.

He said the PDP has even been unable to explain the slogans of self-rule, demilitarisation and dual currency to the general masses.

“Enough is enough,” said the NC patron, while addressing a public meeting at Darhal area in Rajouri district, where the NC is locked mainly in a triangular contest with the PDP and the Congress.

“The PDP can no more divert the attention of the people from its failures and misdeeds by its rhetoric every now and than. They will have to stop building castles in the air as people have now realised their vote bank politics, which they are used to adopt for political gains,” he added.

Holding Mufti Muhammad Sayeed responsible for most of the evils in the state, the NC patron asked the former to explain as to why he did not raised these issues when he was the union home minister or even after when he was the chief minister.

“Why the self-rule, demilitarisation and Pak-currency formula came into his mind just after leaving the chief Ministership?” he said.

“The National Conference has never made false commitments or raked up emotional issues for petty political gains thereby never misguided the people of the state of Jammu and Kashmir because the party feels that they are just not here for politics of power but the party owes a moral obligation and responsibility to the people of the state of Jammu and Kashmir,” he said.

Srinagar, May 16
Senior PDP leader and finance minister Tariq Hameed Karra has blamed the state Vigilance Organisation of resorting to premeditated moves to sabotage development works in the Kashmir valley.

Taking strong exception to the Vigilance Organisation’s reported move of creating unnecessary impediments in the ongoing four-laning work of the Qamarwari-Narbal patch of Srinagar-Muzafarabad road, Karra said it was ironic that the Vigilance Organisation had been consistently not only targeting the employees of a particular region and religion, but had even now started singularly meddling in the developmental projects being executed in the Kashmir valley, with the obvious ulterior motive of preventing any infrastructural development in the region.

“Such highhandedness of the Vigilance Organisation is fraught with serious political implications and no conscientious politician from the region can be a mute spectator to this discriminatory selective-targeting tactics of the Organisation,” he said.

An official spokesman here said Karra expressed dismay over the repeated attempts of the Vigilance Organisation to stall the work on widening of Qamarwari-Narbal road being carried out by the Border Roads Organisation, by questioning the integrity of the decisions taken by the high-level committee headed by the Divisional Commissioner Kashmir that has worked out the compensatory mechanism for the inhabitants affected by the road widening.

Accusing the Vigilance Organisation of having donned the role of an extra-constitutional authority, Karra said, even the selection of officers for various posts was now being reportedly done on the recommendations and behest of the Organization and the recent selection of around a dozen new members of the Services Selection Recruitment Board (SSRB), heavily tilted towards a particular region, was a case in point. “Unrest has started brewing in Kashmir over these appointments,” he said.

“While I would appreciate action against the corrupt elements in the Government and the administration, but it should not be on selective and regional basis”, Karra said and added that it was the obligation of the state’s political leadership to create a mechanism of checks and balances so that no individual or organisation becomes an authority unto itself. 

Srinagar, May 16
The backwater of the Kashmir valley would be the last place in people's mind where a blog would create ripples, but some straight-from-heart and honest comments from state's foremost family's scion, Omar Abdullah, is generating a huge response.

The National Conference (NC) president says he may be accused of being a “hypocrite” as he draws salary from the Indian Parliament and still critises its for its excesses in Jammu and Kashmir, but he also dares to ask why there were none of these “extra-judicial killings, rapes and torture before militancy started in the late 80s” when Army officers and their spouses roamed freely in the valley and mingled with the common masses.

“Nothing can justify what people have had to go through, but to suggest that the people of Kashmir have been subjugated and brutalised for six decades, is to stretch things way too far,” he says.

Taking a dig at his critics, he writes, “I don't visit the Indian Home Ministry or the Pakistani High Commission (or in some cases both together) to collect my monthly dole.” In one of his write-ups which has generated response from 25 persons, Omar talks of his grandfather Sheikh Abdullah's 1975 accord with Indira Gandhi and how many perceived it as a “betrayal” as “he settled without getting what he set out to get.”

Though he admits Sheikh's critics would not be completely wrong, he defends his grandfather, called “Sher-e-Kashmir” and still remembered by a majority of Kashmiris despite militants’ long hate campaign against him, saying he did it to get the best deal for his people.

“Look at what was happening around him - Pakistan had not only lost a war it had been dismembered. The Simla Agreement had been signed which promised to resolve the Kashmir issue and Indira Gandhi was being compared to Goddess Durga,” he writes. He also touches the issue of mass migration of Kashmiri Pandits and recent chants of politicians, including many separatists who were responsible for their exile, and says it was easy to to say they would lay down their lives to bring Kashmiri Pandits back to 
the valley.

Omar also takes potshots at Bollywood actor Aamir Khan for demeaning Shahrukh Khan in his blog where he wrote that his dog was named Shahrukh.

Srinagar, May 16
The Directorate of Physical Education, Kashmir University (KU), Hazratbal, kicked off its sports activities, 2008, with an interdepartmental cricket tournament named “T20” on Saturday last, at the campus grounds.

Keeping up with the spirit and significance of sports activities, various sports events had been chalked out for the season.

An 11-day skiing course organised by the department concluded last month in which 30 students from various university departments and affiliated colleges participated. During the coming months, there would be inter-departmental, inter-college tournaments besides, kayaking, canoeing, water skiing, boating and swimming competitions, Dr. Khurshid A. Tarzan said at the Directorate of Sports.

Quoting Dr Tarzan, a university spokesman said, “For the first time in the history of the Kashmir University, we will be holding a horse polo championship in collaboration with Horse Polo Association, Drass, at the campus.”

This year so far, apart from participation in the fifth National Winter Games at Gulmarg, students from the university and its affiliated colleges participated in women’s cricket at the GNDU, Amritsar, Men’s hockey at the PAU, Ludhiana and football tournament at the university.

According to the university’s PRO, the Physical Education Department is also considering to start a Masters Degree in Physical Education. The university would also have a swimming pool, an indoor gymnasium and a winter sports hut at Gulmarg.

Srinagar, May 16
About 80 judicial officers and seven other senior government officials were transferred in Jammu and Kashmir, officials said today. They said the Jammu and Kashmir High Court has ordered transfer and posting of about 80 judicial officers in the state.

Those whose transfer and posting has been ordered included special judge anti-corruption, Jammu, district and session judges of different courts, judicial member of J-K Sales Tax Tribunal, presiding officer motor accidents claim tribunal, principal district and session judges, Chief Judicial Magistrate, sub judges and munsiffs.

The government has ordered transfer of Tsering Marooq, deputy director Employment Kargil. He has been posted as additional deputy commissioner Kargil Fida Hussain who has been transferred and posted as project director DRDA Kargil. — UNI

Srinagar, May 16
The Jammu and Kashmir Academy of Art, Culture and Languages has initiated a process to catalogue and preserve rare manuscripts of all regions of the state and to collect data on manuscripts at a variety of places, including shrines and private 
collections.

Giving details Zaffar Iqbal Manhas, secretary of the academy, said here that it was a prestigious project to catalog state’s ancient documentary wealth and ensure that basic conservation practices were followed to halt their rapid decay. The dats are located in various shrines, temples, matthas, madrassas, monastries and private collections. The main objective of the project is digitalisation, microfilming and cataloguing of the manuscripts wealth by using latest available technology at global level, he added. The secretary pointed out that the state was equipped with the largest repository of manuscripts in northern India, with an estimated 20,000 texts in dozens of languages. He added that the academy would involve writers and religious scholars in this adventurous hunt for ancient volumes in order to use it not only to expertise but also social skills, coaxing and cultural sensitivity to gain access to wonderful manuscripts.

Zaffar said there were was a recorded history of 5000 years history at our back and that was why the oldest manuscripts that India possessed were a set of sixth century Buddhist texts that were found buried in the hills of Kashmir about 60 years ago. Our researchers have found rare ancient Sanskrit, Tibetan, Arabic and Persian treatises on such subjects as diabetes, astrophysics, interpretation of dreams, surgical instruments, concepts of time and the art of war, we want to catalog and preserve the same for all generations to come, he added.

He said the Academy has its manuscripts library at Srinagar housing about 700 rare manuscripts on history, music, medicine, religion, astronomy , and other subjects, some of them more then thousand year old written on birch barck. 

Srinagar, May 16
Dr Rafiq Masoodi, director, Doordarshan Kendra, Srinagar, has assured that the kendra would bring about an innovative change in the programmes to make them more interesting, educative, informative and popular.

Masoodi, who took over as the director here recently, while chairing the meeting of Programme Advisory Committee yesterday said his endeavor would be to catapult the graph of public viewing of Doordarshan Srinagar by telecasting programmes, which would decorated with high quality entertainment to interest all age groups.

He disclosed that 14 new programmes would be telecasted from the kendra, which would cover various groups, sections and cultures of the society, focusing on youth, women, education, environment, etc. Public interest subjects including folk music, quiz and musical game shows, besides programmes on science, humorous shows and shows on “Sachi Zindagi” and “Safarnama” would form the part of new schedule, he elaborated.

Programme Advisory Committee members M.Y. Taing, Dr Farhat Hamid, Mehraj-ud-Din, Dr Girija Dhar, Raja Nazir Bounyari, Ms. Nighat Pandit and others put forth their view points with regard to folk lore, health, fine arts, tribal welfare, women, agriculture, literature, education and news.

They highlighted the need for creating archives of the works of renowned singers, artists and poets who have remained associated with Radio Kashmir and Doordarshan.

Srinagar, May 16
A CD of some girl students from a college in Anantnag, in which they are seen enjoying themselves on a tour to Mumbai and Goa, has sparked off a controversy with some orthodox bodies demanding action against the college management.

Though the contents of the CD are not definite, police officials and the college principal said the girls were filmed dancing in jeans in parties. They said apparently some people circulated the CD which ignited a controversy. A conservative woman organisation protested and claimed that it was a design to corrupt the girls in particular and the Islamic culture in general. However, police sources said they found nothing obscene in the CD.

“The girls were in jeans and having a good time. This is what our inquiry has revealed,” Nitish Kumar, SSP, said.

Meanwhile, a separatist leader, Hilal War, has asked to ban any tour of locals girls outside the state. Though major organisations have so refrained from making it an issue.

Srinagar, May 16
The district administration has directed telephone authorities to take effective measures to ensure that no unauthorised person can gain access to the tower. The directive has followed two cases in the past eight months, including one incident yesterday, in which groups of unemployed youths climbed up the towers and threatened to end their lives if not promised jobs.

Coordinator, disaster management, Aamir Ali said it was the duty of telecom companies to see to it that their facilities were not misused. He said a mechanism was being worked out whereby a locking system would be put in place so that only authorised personnel would be able to climb the tower.