Jammu, April 24
Almost three years after the sensational murders of cement baron Rajinder Bhushan Chopra, his wife, Madhu, and teenaged daughter Saloni , besides two servants in the Trikuta Nagar locality rocked the winter capital during the intervening night of September 17 and 18 in 2006, one of the two sons of the Chopras wants a CBI probe to unveil the truth.

The younger son, Rohit Chopra, also described the police investigation as eyewash, besides pointing a finger at the previous Congress-led coalition government. However, the Jammu police claims that with the arrest of five Pardhi tribesmen from Guna district of Madhya Pradesh, it had cracked the case.

The killers had tied the victims’ legs and hands, besides gagging them before killing them, said 24- year- old Rohit, adding that his mother and sister had marks of cigarette butts on their bodies.

“It appeared that among the assailants someone was very close to the family because they entered the house at around 10 p.m on the fateful night and then remained in the house for at least two to three hours before brutally killing our family members,” he said.

Rohit (24) and his brother, Puneet Chopra( 25), survived the organised attack because they were away in Melbourne pursuing their business management degrees.

“ The police showed it as a case of looting and arrested five to six tribesmen from Guna district of Madhya Pradesh, but we simply don’t trust their theory and even if we believe them, the kingpin, Sangram Singh, still remains at large,” said Rohit.

The CBI had refused a separate probe on the ground that being local in nature, the local police should investigate the crime, but considering the magnitude of the case (if tribesmen of Guna were involved and a Madhya Pradesh cop committed suicide following state police pressure because he knew Sangram Singh), how the CBI could refuse to take over the investigation, he asked.

“It was a clear case of business rivalry and we think that two to three people had hatched the conspiracy to eliminate our family,” 
he said.

“We request Chief Minister Omar Abdullah to refer the case to the CBI so as to unravel the truth and expose the mastermind”, he said, adding that both the sons wanted to meet him in this regard.

It may be recalled that on September 21, 2006, the then Health Minister Mangat Ram Sharma, in the absence of the then Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, had convened a cabinet meeting for referring the case to the CBI. However, a senior police officer, on condition of anonymity, said the police was making all efforts to arrest Sangram Singh, who had been given a supari of Rs 25 lakh by the conspirator to liquidate the cement baron.

Jammu, April 24
Nearly 4,400 employees of the State Road Transport Corporation (SRTC), hired to operate 886 buses of which 300 are almost defunct, are proving to be a white elephant for the corporation.

Because of the loss of Rs 221 crore, the corporation has not been able to pay them salaries and other allowances such as cost of living allowance (COLA) regularly. The CA and DA of all these employees, too, has also been pending for the past 10 years. The employees, who retired during the period, did not get any emoluments such as gratuity and GP fund.

Srinagar, April 24
One of the hard ideological lessons imparted to militants hailing from Jehadi outfits like the LeT and the JeM is to keep away from girls, which their mentors believe bring disrepute to their outfits, but records suggest this is one rule that Pakistan militants often love to ignore.

The recent killings of militants and their woman accomplices in Doda are not an exception but only the latest in a long list of such stories, say security officials in the valley.

Though Doda encounters were different in a sense that militants’ lovers were also trapped in their hideouts and died in fights while they live to tell the tale in a majority of similar cases.

When Abu Atif, a top LeT commander, was killed in Pulwama in July last year, along with his associate, the police had picked up a woman and claimed that both had children.

Police officials say senior commander of Pakistani outfits are often found to have consorts.

They have lots of money and a bit of influence in their operational area caused by their fear and they often use it to develop relations with the local girls, say the official sources.

They say there have been innumerable cases of women being attacked by militants and the reasons at times have been rooted in souring of personal relations.

And if such relations suit militants, security officials are not complaining either as “indiscretion” made by militants in meeting their ladylove has proved fatal for them in some cases.

Abu Salman, Srinagar commander of the LeT, was shot dead by the cops in November 2007 when he came to handover money to a girl with whom he had a long association. “We had long been chasing him but he managed to dodge us. But he could not resist meeting the girl when she asked him for some money,” says an official associated with the encounter.

One such big story was that of Ghazi Baba, a top commander of the JeM and one of the masterminds in the Parliament attack. When BSF troops shot him dead in an encounter and suspicions were raised whether it was indeed Ghazi Baba, it was his “wife” who identified him.

The main attraction, officials say, for girls and their families is money. “Living standards of many families in villages change dramatically once they play host to militants.

The love angle is often present in cases where money spent on families is lavish and it helps us too,” an official said.

Jammu, April 24
With the arrival of the summer, people are facing the problem of unscheduled power cuts in the city. The power cuts have left them worried and at many places they have started coming on the streets to protest against these.The areas where tamper-proof electronic meters have been installed are also facing the problem.

“In our area, the Power Development Department had installed electronic meters to check pilferage and during installation we were promised continuous power supply throughout the season, but for the past few days, the supply has been irregular,” said Maninder Singh, a resident of the Jeevan Nagar locality of the city.

The people here allege that the power curtailments are deliberately being made in the wee hours of the morning due to which they have to face various problems. “Suddenly, fan and coolers stop functioning early in the morning or late at night due to power breakdown. It is too hot and people cannot manage without these during this season,” said Ashok Mangotra, a resident of Digiana Pully.

“There is no power cut in posh localities of the city. To feed those people with uninterrupted power supply we are made to suffer,” said Anil Kaul, a resident of Model Town, Jammu.

An official of the state Electricity Department, on condition of anonymity, said, “There is always a shortage of power production against the power consumption during summer season and to mitigate the difference the department has to resort to unscheduled power cuts during the summer.” “We are committed to providing uninterrupted power supply to the areas which have been covered with tamper-proof electronic meters, but when there is a shortage, we have to bring those areas also under power cuts”.

Buddhal (Rajouri), April 24
The Centre may have done well in compensating Kashmiri migrants from time to time, but it seems to have done precious little for the militancy-hit migrants of this area. Three families whose 11 members were killed by militants here, forcing them to migrate from their native Dhar and Gabbar villages, allege that though the government is providing relief to the Kashmiri migrants, it has neglected them.

Shanti Devi (46) whose husband, Soba Ram Sharma (50) of Dhar village, and son Sudesh Sharma (22) were among 11 persons killed by militants on October 9, 2005, has been finding it difficult to sustain her family of four. After the incident, she along with her three sons migrated to Buddhal. The family has been forced to live in inhuman conditions in a damaged building of the agriculture department here. Her sole source of income is land measuring about 30 kanal owned by the family on which their tenant, a Muslim nomad (Gujjar), raises crops and gives a part of the harvest to the family.

Shanti’s only aim in life is to educate her two sons, Rakesh Sharma (studying in class XII) and Preetam Sharma (a student of class XI). She, however, couldn’t convince her third son, Ravi Sharma, who left studies after the gruesome incident. Though Shanti has resolved to educate her sons for their better future, she feels helpless at times due to financial constraints.

“After the incident, I knew my husband had left many responsibilities. He himself was not educated, but he always wanted his sons to be educated. I am trying to fulfill his dreams,” said Shanti with tears in her eyes. “Even as the government gave us a compensation of Rs 1 lakh for each member killed, it didn’t provide us any relief after that. We had given several representations to the district administration but nothing happened”.

“Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last year announced a special package for Kashmiri migrants, but he forgot to provide relief to us. If they have migrated from the valley due to the fear of getting killed, our family members were actually killed by militants,” she rued. “The government should also compensate us on the pattern of Kashmiri migrants”.

A senior officer in the district administration said though these migrants were provided relief at the time of the incident, they were not compensated after that and no measures were taken to rehabilitate them. “We have forwarded their case to the higher authorities so that they are provided relief”, officer claimed. “I have heard their CID verification is under process”.

Asked why government adopts double standards in providing relief to militancy-hit migrants of Kashmir, the officer said, "We cannot do much as it is the government’s policy".

Jammu, April 24
Locating a house with a number given by the municipal authorities or the Jammu Development Authority (JDA) in any area of the city has always been an unhappy experience.

Every street has houses that are haphazardly numbered. There is lot of confusion with absolutely no sense of orderliness in allotting numbers to the houses. Similar numbers are issued to households on their bifurcation, which compounds the confusion.

Localities like Shastri Nagar, Gandhi Nagar, Nanak Nagar and Sarwal are glaring examples where no proper method has been followed in allotting house numbers.

One has to make hectic efforts to locate a house in spite of having the address. Either similar numbers have been allotted to many houses or lanes are numbered haphazardly.

The post offices of the areas concerned also face a lot of difficulties.

Postmaster- general of the Gandhi Nagar post office says though regular delivery boys are well aware of the system, the newly appointed staff face hardships in locating a house.

Expressing disappointment over the irregular numbering system, Vinod Bhat, a resident of Trikuta Nagar, South Extension, says, “We are facing problems due to the allotment of similar house numbers to four different families. Sometimes my letter is delivered in the house of other family and some times vice-versa”.

“Some relatives have to face embarrassment when they enter somebody else’s house on seeing our house number displayed on their main gate and it is almost difficult for an unknown person to reach a correct address,” he adds.

“The expansion of the city has mostly been carried out by private colonisers. The condition in almost all such privately developed colonies or JDA developed colonies is worst in so far as allotment of house numbers is concerned,” says Sanjeev Sharma, a resident of Gandhi Nagar.

However, in some localities one house has been allotted a number thrice by different departments.

Expressing anguish, Vivek Gupta, a resident of Sarwal, says earlier, they were given a house number by the food and supplies department after which they were given a new number twice by the corporation which has created a lot of confusion.

He says there should be a proper system for the allotment of house numbers in every locality.

“Attractive incentives need to be offered to the revenue office staff of Jammu and others involved in renumbering so that they put in efforts to complete the job in a perfect manner. Such an exercise will help the JMC to have realistic statistical information about the exact number of houses and help in improving tax collections as well,” says Rajesh Puri, a student of Jammu University.

He says, “The haphazard numbering of the houses in the city depicts that there may not be a proper databank about the exact number of houses the city has got.”

Kavinder Gupta, JMC mayor, acknowledges that there is a problem in the allotment of house and lane numbers in most of the colonies, but he says that the problem is confounded mostly in areas and colonies constructed by private colonisers.

He says the JMC would seriously work on rectifying the mistakes through the creation of a databank of total number of houses in the city and would allot the numbers in a scientific manner to resolve the problem.

Jammu, April 24
A memorial of havildar Vijay Kumar, who was killed by Pakistani militants in the Chinore encounter on August 27 last year, has been set up at Bantalab, near the encounter site.

The chowk, where the bust has been installed, has also been named as Vijay Chowk, in memory of the brave soldier. It was in the wee hours when militants, after sneaking into the Indian side from Kanachak border, were moving towards Jammu city with an intention to target a rally of the Shri Amarnath Sangharash Samiti.

The 38-year-old havildar of 5 JAKLI was on leave on that day.

He was driving an auto rickshaw when he came across a group of three militants dressed in police uniforms.

The militants, carrying AK-47 rifles, forcibly boarded his three-wheeler and asked Vijay to take them to the Parade Ground, where the rally was to be organised.

While displaying bravery and presence of mind, the soldier took them towards an area being patrolled by the Army. Getting suspicious, the militants opened the fire, killing Vijay Kumar and two other Army jawans, including a JCO, on the spot.

The militants later moved towards the Bantalab locality on the Jammu-Akhnoor road and killed a motorcyclist. This road has about 12 vital installations on both sides, including CRPF Group Centre, All India Radio’s high power transmission and staff colony, Kot Bhalwal Central Jail, Kendriya Vidyalaya, Raipur Army Cantonment Area, Bantalab Exchange and many professional and educational institutions.

An Army patrol party, which was following the militants, surrounded them in a house in the Chinore locality and killed all militants in an 18 hour-long operation. Meanwhile, the locals have appreciated the gesture of installing a bust in memory of Vijay Kumar, who created the circumstances that led to the killing of the intruders, thereby saving many innocent lives.

The residents said Vijay Kumar’s dedication and bravery should serve as an inspiration to the younger generation.

Jammu, April 24
Camp Gole Gujral, a village of 1,500 Sikh refugees of occupied Kashmir (PoK), presents a picture of utter neglect. The village has remained in a miserable state ever since it came into existence in 1947.

An open manhole in Camp Gole Gujral in Jammu. Photo by Inderjeet Singh

This village is situated hardly half a kilometer away from the jurisdiction of the Jammu municipal limits and ward no. 32, which is represented by deputy mayor Daramvir Singh Jamwal.

The village lacks basic civic facilities. However, the main flood drain has become a major cause of worry for the residents of this village.

With the expansion of Jammu city, the drain has been extended beyond the municipal limits. A concrete embankment has been constructed by the Economic Reconstruction Agency (ERA), but only up to the deputy mayor’s ward.

In the absence of garbage bins in the village, the drain has become a dumping ground for garbage, turning it into a breeding place for mosquitoes, flies, rats and snakes.

The presence of snakes in the drain has become a constant threat to the children who play along the banks of this drain.

Maan Kaur, a resident of the area, said, “Foul smell emits from the drain. Snakes can be seen into it. We have to remain vigilant when small children go for playing near its banks”. Open manholes on the side of the drain, which is around three feet deep, have devoured many calves and buffalos in the past and have also led to road accidents.

The absence of streetlights has added to the increasing number of accidents on this road. There are broken manholes in the lane drains as well, which is also causing problem to the commuters.

Most of the residents of this village are connected with transport trade, but the pathetic condition of the road depicts the neglect this village has been facing at the hands of the government.

This road usually remains waterlogged at the slightest rainfall, but the patchwork was carried out sometimes back, which has given the residents some relief.

Expressing resentment, Harmeet Singh, a resident, said all residents of the village were distressed due to irregular power supply.

He said potable water supplied in the area was also polluted. “Water in the village is not good for drinking as it is of yellow colour,” he averred.

Manpreet Singh, another resident, said, “We had been badly treated by every department. Last month, the irrigation department cleared the silt from the irrigation channels, but in our area the channel was cleared up to the deputy mayor’s ward only”.

Expressing disappointment over the condition of the village, sarpanch Darminder Singh said he had raised the matter with the BDO and former MLA of the area Ajay Sadhotra several times, but no one paid any heed. He also said the authorities had been providing Rs 2-3 lakh only as development funds which were too meagre for the area.

Block development officer of the area, Gurmeet Kaur, expressed ignorance over the sufferings of the residents of the area.

However, she said she would discuss the issue with the ERA department.She refused to comment on other major problems of the area.

Jammu, April 24
Union is strength… they say it, but this trio of child beggars practices it in reality. Their picture perfect presents communal harmony, particularly in the aftermath of Amaranth land row that divided the state on communal lines. Their unity has become a common sight at the main chowk of RS Pura, near bus stand, their favorite turf.

The group comprises a girl called Bulli, her brother Nabi (both Muslims), and a Hindu boy, Sonu. They have been doing their job collectively and peacefully for the past six months.

The Hindu boy lives in a nearby temple while the Muslim children live in the Peer Baba shrine, both places of worship are located at a close distance to each other. So they keep frequenting each other’s place of living without inhibitions.

This trio moves out in the morning, collect alms and savour eatables and soft drinks together in the afternoon.

However, they had an unusual spat with each other last week. “A baraat was passing by and a baraati gave us a note of Rs 10,” Bulli puts in when asked as to how good was their friendship. Bulli added naively, “Dividing Rs 10 between three persons is not an easy task. After getting Rs 3 each neither Nabi nor Sonu was ready to give up an extra rupee.”

Boys were quick to add, “We started to quarrel openly in the bazaar…. and don’t ask what happened after that… it brought us wide condemnation from all.”

“So we realised that friendship is more important than money and I picked up the Rs 10 note from Nabi’s cloak and threw it,” Sonu said.

A local shopkeeper, however, said, “Don’t regard their mellow talking, these little monsters have frustrated the entire market. Whichever shop they stand before, it soon wears a deserted look.”

“It’s a business for Bangladeshis to keep on breeding children and spill them over to the roads for begging,” he mumbled.