Srinagar, January 23
As many as 17 persons were injured when pro-separatist demonstrators demanding the release of detained separatist leaders scuffled with forces in downtown today. Security forces had to burst tear gas shells and resort to lathicharge to disperse protesters. aOfficial sources said the injured included some security personnel. The clashes broke out soon after the Friday namaz. Protesters, especially youth, took out a rally raising pro-freedom slogans and demanding the release of leaders like Shabir Shah and Nayeem Khan. Security personnel fired tear gas shells and baton-charged protesters to bring the situation under control.The downtown areas of Nowhatta, Safa Kadal, Khanyar are strongholds of the Hurriyat (M). 

Udhampur, January 23
The police eliminated two Hizbul Mujihideen (HM) militants, including Zahoor Ahmed Khandey, in Doda district this afternoon.

Zahoor, a self-styled area commander of the HM, along with a new recruit, Sajjad Hussain, both residents of Chelli in Doda, were gunned down by a special team of the local police at Batyas village in the Gandoh area of Bhaderwah this afternoon after a fierce encounter.

The killing of Zahoor indicates that the policy of target-oriented operations being executed by the security forces in this area for the past 10 months is yielding encouraging results. Zahoor is the sixth dreaded militant and self-styled commander to be chased, tracked down and killed by the police in a surgical target-oriented operation.

Zahoor, who was active in this belt since 1995-96, had masterminded a number of terrorist attacks and was an expert in IEDs.

“For the past three days, a special police team was chasing Zahoor and he was ultimately tracked down”, DIG, Doda-Ramban range, Hemant Kumar Lohia told the Tribune. Lohia, who has devised the target-oriented strategy, informed that so far six hardcore and longest surviving militants had been killed in the past few months.

Giving details of today’s operation, the DIG said after getting specific information about the presence of Zahoor in a house at Batyas village, the security forces cordoned off the area and asked the militant to surrender. Senior officers, who led the operation, had reportedly asked some villagers to pursue the militants to surrender, but to no avail.

As soon as security personnel entered the house, Zahoor and his accomplice resorted to indiscriminate firing with automatic weapons. “After a four-hour-long fierce gun battle, the police gunned down the two militants, one of whom was later identified as a top commander of the HM,” said the senior police officer.

Two AK 47 riffles and other ammunition were recovered from the site of encounter.

Meanwhile, the Army and the Doda police busted a militant hideout of top Lashkar-e-Toiba commanders in Badani Nallah in Bhaderwah.

Jammu, January 23
Chief Minister Omar Abdullah today announced the setting up of a joint task force for the promotion of industry and growth and development of the state.

The Chief Minister will be its chairman with a former CII president as its co-chairman. The task force members will be prominent industrialists and national-level figures, local CEOs, economists and government officials.

The task force will also have a working group, headed by the Chief Secretary and co-chaired by the CII. Its members will be select CEOs and government officials. The secretariat for the task force and the working group will be the CII.

Omar announced the formation of the task force with the CII for Jammu and Kashmir at a meeting with its Director-General Chandrajit Banerjee, who called on him here this morning to reaffirm CII's participation in the development agenda of the state.

Interacting with Banerjee and other members of the CII team, the CM said his top priority was improving skill sets of the youth of the state in tune with the present and futuristic job market requirements.

He said his high priority areas included creation of human capital so that any investment in the state also helped the youth in getting employment. In addition to human capital development, he also asked the CII to identify focused areas that could have targeted intervention for development, including IT, horticulture, agro-processing, which would not be affected by locational disadvantages.

Banerjee outlined the CII initiatives proposed for Jammu and Kashmir in the first phase. He said the CII would also set up a skill development centre in partnership with the state government. He said the CII would invest Rs 1 crore in various skill development initiatives. He announced that the CII would open an office in Srinagar to build the momentum.

The CII also presented various suggestions on other critical areas, including tourism, agriculture, for socio-economic development of the state.

Jammu, January 23
A delegation of SOS International, an outfit of PoK refugees, led by its president Rajiv Chuni met Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and apprised him of the plight of refugees.

Chuni said the successive state governments made false promises to the refugees, many of whom had been leading a pitiable life for the past 61 years and were suffering from ailments like TB, psychic disorders, depression and malnutrition. He said Kashmiri migrants were being treated in a far better way, with huge relief packages being extended to them. He said 24 Assembly seats of the PoK area were still frozen in the Assembly despite the fact that one third of PoK residents were living here as refugees.

The PoK refugees put forth their demands before the CM and sought their fulfilment at the earliest. Their main demands included according refugee status to the displaced persons from PoK, filling of eight of the 24 reserved Assembly seats from among the PoK refugees residing here in exile either by election or nomination, abolition of categorisation of PoK refugees and the constitution of a PoK Refugees Development Board.

Srinagar, January 23
The Wild Life Department in Kashmir is making use of Global Positioning System (GPS), a technology to track the pattern of a bear’s movement, which was recently intruded into a village, on an experimental basis to extrapolate a way from obtained data to deal with rising man-animal conflict in the valley.

An official in the Dachigam national park told The Tribune that regular casualties of people, especially children who are easy prey of wild animals, has been a big concern for them.

Officials have put a radio collar fitted with GPS around a six-year-old bear, which was caught by officials recently from a residential settlement.

The bear was injured in a villagers’ attack and was released after treatment. “It will help us in understanding the lifestyle of a bear. What is the area of its movement so that we could draw strategy to ensure that the species do not stray into human settlement,” the official said.

Bears and leopards are the most threatening nuisance in the valley as far as threat to human lives is concerned and two persons have been killed in the New Year so far. Official sources said seven persons have been killed in the last two years and over 60 injured. And in many cases villagers have assail and even killed these beasts. Wild Life officials say bears are mostly in hibernation in winter months.

One of the major reasons for man-animal conflicts, experts say, is the increasing encroachment of human settlement upon what once used to be habitat of these animals. “Humans feel threatened from animals. But the bitter fact is that wild animals are more threatened from humans,” an official said.

Jammu, January 23
After inheriting a whopping deficit of Rs 13,772 crore and an overdraft of Rs 2,300 crore from the previous PDP-Congress coalition government, Finance Minister Abdul Rahim Rather today gave his word to implement the recommendations of the 6th Pay Commission within the next few months.

However, in the backdrop of huge financial implications vis-à-vis the state’s ailing fiscal health Rather could not give any deadline, but promised that the recommendations would be implemented this year. Meanwhile, the employees threatened to go on strike on January 28 if the date of implementation of the recommendations was not announced before it.

Addressing a hurriedly called press conference here this afternoon, Rather said, “If the state government has to implement the pay panel recommendations with retrospective effect from January 1, 2006, to March 31, 2009, for four lakh employees, the total amount accrues to Rs 3,800 crore with a recurring expenditure of Rs 1,380 crore every year and we all know that state’s internal revenue from all resources stand at Rs 3,000 crore.”

He informed that the recurring expenditure of Rs 1,380 crore per annum excluded Rs 200 crore for pensioners going to be covered, once recommendations were put into practice.

“Apart from this, till date there has been a deterioration of internal resources to the tune of Rs 1,000 crore. I hope it stays there,” said Rather, adding that leave aside other things the state today had pending Rs 24 crore GP fund bills.

“We principally understand the problems of the employees in the wake of inflation and earnestly want to implement the recommendations, but ways and means have to be devised to accomplish the task,” he added.

“No doubt, the state is not in a good fiscal health, but like in the past we will fulfil our promise and implement the pay panel recommendations,” he said.

He further said we would meet the Planning Commission on January 28 for the next fiscal year’s plan and would also take up the issue with the apex body.

Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, too, earnestly wanted to get the issue sorted out as per aspirations of the employees. Hence the employees should also avoid any confrontational path, he added.

Meanwhile, employees unions threatened a one-day strike on January 28.

“If the government failed to announce the implementation of the recommendations by January 27, all government and PSU employees would go on strike on January 28,” Jammu Joint Committee (JCC) members Gafoor Dar and Ram Kumar Sharma said.

Srinagar: Meanwhile, the KAS officers Association has expressed satisfaction over the “positive approach” of the Finance Minister on the issue of sixth Pay Commission and enhancement of the superannuation age from 58 to 60 years.

The association met with the Finance minister and hoped that the Sixth Pay Commission report would be implemented soon. A decision on the issue, according to a spokesman for the association, had already been taken by a high-level committee of the government headed by SL Bhat, finance commissioner, planning, and approved by Governor NN Vohra. 

Jammu, January 23
Even as Finance Minister Abdul Rahim Rather requested four lakh state government employees to avoid confrontational path, various employees unions today extended support to the January 28 strike call given by the Joint Consultative Committee.

Addressing mediapersons here today, the state president of the Jammu and Kashmir National Trade Union Front, Mohammad Gafoor Dar, appealed to all government employees to observe a complete strike on January 28.

Dar also urged leaders of the front to mobilise employees of Jammu district to assemble at the Exhibition Ground, near the Press Club, for a protest rally on the day of strike.

He asked the NC-led coalition government to implement the Sixth Pay Commission’s recommendations without further delay. “The NC had included it in its election manifesto and hence it should honour its word,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Public Health Engineering Department Driver and Cleaners Union has also extended support to the strike call. Water tanker drivers, however, are not supporting the call. The union demanded the immediate removal of pay anomalies in cadres of drivers and cleaners, release of remaining one-and-a-half day ex gratia salary, regularisation of temporary workers, who have completed five years of service, and purchase of new vehicles.

Leh, January 23
A two-day annual festival of Spithuk monastery, one of the biggest monastery of Ladakh, began here today.

Celebrating in an elaborate extravaganza, religious festival of monastic culture, the festival celebrates after a week-long prayers and performance of ritual in the names of God and Goddess of Gelungpa sect of Tibetan Buddhism on 28th and 29th of 11th month of the Tibetan calendar, which follows in Ladakh by the Buddhists.

Apart from mask dances by the monks of the monastery by donning the dresses of the God and Goddess, the festival also celebrated after completeness of prayer for peace, tranquility and timely snow, which is a source of water in the summer.

Amidst freezing cold under the temperature -5°C today, there were more than hundred of foreign tourists to witness the festival.

Jammu, January 23
Deputy Chief Minister Tara Chand’s recent meeting with Jammu Municipal Corporation officials and councillors did not yield any result as he left in a hurry, promising to discuss all issues in another meeting after January 26.

Addressing the councillors and staff, the Deputy Chief Minister expressed concern over the pathetic state of sanitation in the city. “After spending crores of rupees for maintaining cleanliness the winter capital’s condition is still poor.” He assured that safai karamcharis would be made permanent by abolishing the NGO system. He directed the corporation to appoint supervisors to keep a check on sanitation staff and maintain a proper duty chart.

Mayor Kavinder Gupta said the corporation was facing financial crisis, whereas the municipal limits were increasing rapidly. He said the corporation had several villages where Jammu Development Authorities (JDA) had constructed colonies and were charging the people for civic amenities.

Demanding more funds from the government, Gupta said the annual income of the corporation was Rs 6 crore which is too meagre for the development of 72 wards. He demanded that safai karamcharis should be made permanent and they should be provided separate colonies.

Deputy Mayor Dharamveer Singh Jamwal demanded that JDA, Housing, PWD, PHE, etc. should be brought under the municipal control to raise the revenue of the corporation. He also sought a ban on use of polythene bags.

Jammu, January 23
Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has stressed the need for imparting technical and craft-oriented training to women to promote their self-reliance and economic empowerment. He also said chairperson and members of the State Commission for Women would be appointed at the earliest.

The Chief Minister said this while interacting with various deputations and individuals, who met him and apprised him of their demands.

Interacting with a deputation of women, led by Bimla Luthra, Omar said technical training could be a viable alternative for the holistic development of women in the long run. He said the Social Welfare Department would be activated and made more welfare-oriented.

He also felt the need for enhancing rates of old-age and widow pension that had remained static for the last several years. He said the department had to ensure the wellbeing of every needy and destitute woman.

Earlier, the Chief Minister had also reviewed the functioning of the Social Welfare Department during which it was announced that 3,094 more anganwari centres would be set up and an equal number of anganwari workers would be employed at these centres. He also laid emphasis on a strong forward linkage of the women receiving vocational training at the social welfare centres so that their empowerment was ensured and the skill they obtain did not go waste.

Srinagar, January 23
In a stepped-up drive against violators, the traffic police in Kashmir booked 568 erring drivers and seized 25 vehicles here during the past 48 hours.

The drive was kickstarted by the traffic police on January 20 and seven vehicles were seized and a fine of Rs 65,000 was realised from 404 violators. A police spokesman said 568 violators were booked during the past 48 hours in Srinagar. While 25 vehicles were seized, fine to the tune of Rs 88,400 was realised from the offenders, he added.

He said the offenders included motorcyclists driving without crash helmets, 81 drivers without their driving licence and 84 were charged for over speeding and dangerous driving.

Nine persons were challaned for using mobile phones while driving, the spokesman said adding that drivers of 20 passenger vehicles were charged with overloading, 27 persons challaned for wrong parking. — UNI