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10 hurt in Srinagar clashes
Vohra calls for peace
Central team reviews situation
Malik begins indefinite fast
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Reasi Muslims support
Jammu stir
Pandits body: Don’t let division creep in
Cancelled weddings, side effect of Amarnath row
BJP blames unrest on Cong policy
265 pilgrims leave for Amarnath
2 hideouts busted, RDX, arms seized
Grenade attack
foiled
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10 hurt in Srinagar clashes
Srinagar, July 5 Amidst shutdown, clashes, which took place across the summer capital, were more severe in and around the Maisuma locality to which killed youth Asif Ahmad Dar (18) belonged. Dar was killed when a tear gas shell hit him. The situation in Lal Chowk and Budshah chowk were also tense after intermittent clashes. People in the valley, which returned to normalcy after the land transfer order was revoked in early July, again turned on the protest mode when taxi and truck drivers of the region narrated their harassment in Jammu. Driver Javed Wani, who was also assaulted, said vehicles with Kashmir’s registration numbers were deliberately singled out and targeted. Members of the Fruit Growers and Distributors Association said things were fine for a short while after the Army took charge of the highway. “Many vehicles returned from midway yesterday. Out vehicles were also attacked in Punjab,” its president Ghulam Rasool Bhat said. On Sunday, protesters from Maisuma vendalised vehicles with Jammu’s registration number and beat up some outsiders. Mufti meets Vohra
Former Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed called on Governor N.N.Vohra here today and discussed the political and security aspects of the prevailing situation in the state. A PDP spokesman said here that in his hour-long meeting with the Governor, Mufti Sayeed offered his party's full support and cooperation in bringing the situation back to normal. The PDP patron expressed concern over the slide in the normalisation process that was initiated in 2002 and called for immediate confidence-building measures to prevent further deterioration of the situation. Mufti Sayeed said the regional and communal polarisation had started assuming dangerous dimensions and all political parties and groups must come forward and help defuse the situation that had now started threatening the state's integrity. He said the tremendous gains on the political and developmental fronts, made between 2002 and 2005, had started evaporating and regional and religious gulf was widening fast to the detriment of the state's interests. The PDP patron made a passionate plea to the people in both regions for not allowing the vested interests to exploit the situation. |
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Vohra calls for peace
Srinagar, August 5 Vohra expressed his deep concern over the damages caused to the railway track at Hiranagar and said such acts were reprehensible and caused inconvenience to public, besides economic losses.
— TNS |
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Central team reviews situation
Srinagar, July 5 This was revealed by chief secretary S. S. Kapur after a detailed meeting with the high-level central team comprising union home secretary Madhukar Gupta and defence secretary Vijay Singh here today. The meeting reviewed the overall situation in the Jammu region. The central team had taken a similar stock-taking meeting at Jammu yesterday. The chief secretary said while the overall security and law and order situation was reviewed, the focus of today's meeting was securing of the Srinagar-Jammu National highway for free and smooth flow of trucks carrying fuel, essentials and fresh fruits on either side of the Jawahar tunnel. Kapur said said the Governor had issued clear instructions for ensuring free movement of trucks on the highway. Measures had already been put in place to ensure hassle-free plying of trucks from Lakhanpur to Srinagar and vice versa, leading to an improvement in the scenario. He said 400 Srinagar-bound load carriers were cleared at Lakhanpur yesterday, besides 150 trucks arriving from Srinagar. Besides fuel tankers, 46 trucks carrying sheep also arrived in Srinagar yesterday. |
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Malik begins indefinite fast
Srinagar, August 5 Malik started his hunger strike on a road near the JKLF office in Maisuma and was joined by party leaders Bashir Ahmad Bhat and Ghulam Rasool Eidie. “The hunger strike is in support of our demand for providing security to Muslims in Jammu,” he said. The community was feeling insecure as there was no improvement in the situation despite the Army’s presence, he added. He said the fast was also to register protest against the harassment to Kashmiris residing in Jammu and the transporters and truckers, who were allegedly beaten up by protesters. |
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Geelani put under house arrest
Srinagar, August 5 Official sources said in view of the surcharged atmosphere in the city, Geealni was again put under house arrest as a precautionary measure. He was first put under house arrest on August 3 evening after he gave a one-day general strike call in protest against the alleged attacks on Muslims in the Jammu region. However, this morning police personnel outside his residence deployed since August 3 evening were withdrawn. A spokesman of the Hurriyat Conference Aiyaz Akbar told UNI that Geelani visited the house of Asif Mehraj at Maisuma this morning. Asif was killed after a tear gas shell hit him in the head yesterday. Akbar said a large number police personnel had again been deployed outside Geelani's Hyderpora residence. He was informed that he could not leave his house till further orders. Meanwhile, Geelani has called for a general strike tomorrow in protest against the all-party meeting convened by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to discuss the situation in Jammu and Kashmir. “I have reports suggesting that the meeting will decide in favour of transferring land to the Amarnath Shrine Board ”, he told a press conference at his Hyderpora residence. |
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Reasi Muslims support
Jammu stir Jammu, August 5 Muslims, who participated in the rally, made it clear that there was no communal tension in Jammu province as falsely projected by some Kashmir-based political organisations for their petty political gains. These leaders asked fundamentalists and other separatist leaders of the Kashmir valley not to indulge in the affairs of local Muslims. "We are living peacefully with our Hindu brethren so there is no need for Kashmiri leaders to intervene in this side of Pir Panchal", Abdul Rashid, a resident of Reasi, told the gathering and offered full support to the ongoing Jammu agitation Muslim leaders regretted that some valleybased leaders have been giving provocative statements to create division between Hindus and Muslims in Jammu province. Extending full support to their Hindu brethren, Muslim leaders assured that they would come on streets to force the government to revoke its decision on the Amarnath land row. Moulvi Mohammad Bashir, Imam of Reasi mosque, had already offered full support to the on-going stir. Taking a dig at Kashmiri leaders for showing "sympathy" with Jammu Muslims, these leaders said that Muslims of the Jammu region were also bearing brunt of the discriminatory policies of the successive state governments of the state. "People of Jammu do not want to learn a lesson of secularism from Kashmiri leadership. Even at the time of crises people of this region have maintained communal harmony and brotherhood", said Rashid Malik.
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Pandits body: Don’t let division creep in
Srinagar, August 5 In a statement here today, samiti president Sanjay K Tickoo held the Central and state governments responsible for the Amarnath land row and said due to their ill-conceived policies, several political parties have been able to paralyse life in order to achieve “political gains”. He said the recent developments showed that the state politicians had not addressed sensitive issues properly. The samiti president reiterated its demand of handing over all religious places of the community from Keran Karnah, Uri in the north to Qazigund in the south, to the Pandits living in Kashmir. He said the members of the last Assembly did not allow the House to pass the Kashmiri Pandits Temples and Shrine Bill. “If the temples and shrines of the minority community of the valley are handed to the locals, by virtue of this Temple Bill, the controversy will automatically come to an end,” Tickoo commented. The Central and state governments once again under-estimated the role of Kashmiri Pandits living in the valley while addressing the vital and sensitive matters of the state, he added. The samiti questioned as to how the people were allowed to come on the roads even in the curfew-bound areas of Jammu despite the Army’s presence. “The situation in Jammu does not seem to come to an end even if the Army was allowed to have flag march through the cities of the Jammu region,” the president stated. He appealed to people of Jammu to allow the traffic on the national highway so that people of this part does not suffer for want of medicines mainly life saving drugs and other essential commodities used in day-to-day life. |
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Cancelled weddings, side effect of Amarnath row
Srinagar, August 5 Scores of wedding ceremonies were cancelled in June as the spectre of another long round of violence and bandh loomed over the valley. And now the unrest on the national highway connecting Kashmir to the rest of India is doing the damage. Bashir Ahmad Mir of Srinagar gave out an advertisement today, informing guests that his son's elaborate wedding ceremonies on August 6 and 7 stand cancelled. The local dailies are full of similar "regrets" to guests by families of either bride or bridegroom or both in some cases. "We love a grand feast on weddings. We call a number of guests and indulge like a festival. It's not possible these days. Many guests living in Jammu division can't come in such situation," Abdur Rehman, a local resident, said. Many others said fresh mutton, an essential ingredient of the lavish Kashmiri banquet called wazwan, is in short supply due to blockade on the highway and rates have gone up. In a lavish wazwan, non-vegetarian dishes, especially mutton, go over 10 and an average ceremony consumes over 400-500 kg of mutton. During the trouble in June, a huge number of weddings was cancelled and these had started getting solenmnised in the past two weeks as the situation returned to normal in the valley. But it was not to be. As tensions brimmed over in Jammu, another round of cancellation is in the offing. |
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24 trains cancelled as track uprooted
Jammu, August 5 At least two dozen trains were cancelled or postponed thus leaving many passengers stranded at the Jammu railway station. According to sources in the northern railway, a high-level team has been rushed to the spot to access the damage to the railway track. “Around two and a half km of the railway track was uprooted,” the sources informed. However, till the filing of this report, the authorities were not able to start the repair work due to the protests in the area. “It would take 10 to 12 hours to repair the damage and one to two days to restore the normal traffic,” an official at the Jammu railway station said. “We have no information as to what happened; they only say that the trains have been cancelled or postponed,” said Ashok Kumar, a resident of Delhi, who had come here along with his five family members. |
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BJP blames unrest on Cong policy
Jammu, August 5 Gupta said this while interacting with a group of Kashmiri
migrants who had gone to meet him to discuss the ongoing crisis in Jammu. “Taking no lesson from Partition of the country, the then
Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru, despite warning by nationalist leaders, including Moulana Mohani, had granted a separate status, though under a temporary provision of Article 370, to Jammu and Kashmir to appease Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah under communal consideration,” he said. Gupta said because of the confused policies of the ruling leadership of the Congress, the situation had worsened. But the parties like the Congress, the NC and the PDP, which were aided by pro-Pakistan elements, were speaking the language unacceptable to the nationalist forces. The BJP also demanded immediate dismissal of Governor N.N. Vohra, saying that “his continuation even for a day is detrimental to the national interest in the state”. In a statement released here, state BJP president Ashok Khajuria flayed the state and Central governments for trying to portray the essentially secular movement in Jammu as communal. He demanded the curfew should be lifted immediately, the Army should be withdrawn and sent to Kashmir to crush the anti-national elements there and mediapersons should be allowed to perform their duties freely. |
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Magisterial probe into Samba firing ordered
Jammu, August 5 No curfew relaxation was given in Samba following yesterday's incident as the situation was tense. Meanwhile, a magisterial probe was today ordered into the police firing. "We have ordered a magisterial probe into the police firing in Samba," Surav Bhagat, district magistrate, Samba, told PTI on the phone. The probe would investigate as to what prompted the police led by SSP Prabhat Singh to open fire without magisterial orders, he said. The probe order comes in the wake of allegations by the Shri Amarnath Sangharsh Samiti that the SSP took an AK rifle from his personal security officer after being hit by a stone and fired on protestors. The samiti had demanded dismissal of the SSP and his immediate arrest.
— Agencies |
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Shiv Sainiks block JK-bound vehicles
Jammu, August 5 Talking to The Tribune, a top official said people backed by several activists from the Shiv Sena and other organisations today blocked the national highway at Lakhanpur and Madhopur in neighbouring Punjab. The activists also tried to stop vehicles carrying essential commodities to the state, he added. However, the Army dispersed the crowd and escorted the vehicles for their onward journey to Jammu and Srinagar. The state administration has already handed over the entire highway from Lakhanpur to Kashmir valley to the Army. “Though the Army has been deployed all along the highway, the Shiv Sena activists have started creating troubles at Madhopur and Pathankot,” he claimed. He said, Governor N.N. Vohra had already taken up the matter with Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and the latter had assured unhindered movement of vehicles in Punjab. Badal has instructed the Punjab Police to provide safe passage to the
state-bound vehicles, he added. Describing the situation as grim, the official said people had a right to air their grievance in a democratic way, but they should not enforce economic blockade as it would create shortage of essential commodities in the trouble-hit state. Union home secretary Madhukar Gupta has also asked the state administration to ensure hassle-free supplies to the Kashmir valley. He emphasised upon keeping all modes of communication and transportation free from any glitches. However, it has been reliably learnt that Hindu organisations in Punjab and Himachal Pradesh have decided to support the agitation being spearheaded by the Amarnath Yatra Sangharsh Samiti. |
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265 pilgrims leave for Amarnath
Srinagar, August 5 A yatra official told UNI over the phone from Baltal, the shortest route to the cave shrine, that only 265 pilgrims left the base camp this morning for the cave. He said yatris who had performed puja in the shrine this morning were on their way back to base camp. An official from the Nunwan-Pahalgam base camp said 601 pilgrims, including 132 sadhus, 20 children and 138 women left the camp this morning through the traditional route. It would take them three or four days to reach the shrine, he said, adding that similarly those who were at different halting stations after having darshan were on their way back to the base camp. More than five lakh pilgrims had darshan of the self-made ice lingam since the commencement of the yatra from June 18. The last darshan will be on Rakshabandan.
— UNI |
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2 hideouts busted, RDX, arms seized
Jammu/Srinagar, August 5 Troops demolished a hideout in the Marmath area of Doda district and seized 2 kg of RDX, one Pika gun, one UBGL, five UBGL grenades, 50 rounds of AK rifle, three AK rifle magazines, three grenades and two wireless sets, defence sources said. However, no arrest was made, they said. Troops of 177 Field Regiment busted a hideout and seized some arms and ammunition near the Line of Control (LOC) in north Kashmir, official sources said. Sources said the troops conducted a search operation in the general area of Sheikhnar Machil near the LoC in Kupwara following a tip-off about the hideout. During the operation the hideout was busted and one Ak-56 rifle, three AK rifle magazines, 89 rounds of Ak ammunition and one Pouch were recovered. However, no one was arrested, sources added.
— Agencies |
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Grenade attack
foiled Udhampur, August 5 The police said, on the basis of specific information pertaining to a possible attack on the local BJP leader, personnel were deployed in the local market. “Observing a suspicious movement of a local youth, the policeman in a civil dress immediately overpowered him and recovered a live grenade from his possession,” a police officer said. The accused, Mohammad Rasool Bhatt, a resident of Udhainpur, Doda, revealed that he was assigned the task of hurling a grenade at the shop of local BJP leader Swami Raj. However, the tragedy was averted by the Doda police, which apprehended Bhatt before he could hurl the grenade.
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