Udhampur, May 19
After the tragic Kishtwar road accident, which claimed 32 lives, the Traffic Police has initiated concrete steps to minimise the number of deaths on roads. A campaign against violators of traffic rules has been started and a comprehensive survey has also been conducted to identify accident-prone spots on the Jammu-Srinagar national highway and the Batote-Kishtwar national highway, where road mishaps have become a routine affair.

After the Kishtwar accident, it was widely alleged that most of the condemned vehicles were plying in Doda and Kishtwar districts, and operators of these vehicles had fake driving licenses.

“We have singled out as many as 200 accident-prone vulnerable spots on both highways which required immediate attention,” Alok Kumar, SSP, National Highway, told The Tribune.

Quoting some parts of the survey report, the SSP said 100 points had been identified on the highways for erecting barricades, and the Beacon authorities had been asked to take effective steps on these spots.

To make the survey totally scientific, the Traffic Police has also utilised services of some experts. Deplorable conditions of roads, non-availability of adequate passenger buses and overloading have been considered as the main reasons for increasing road accidents in this belt.

As far as the campaign against the violators of traffic rules are concerned, the Traffic Police has so far seized 114 passenger vehicles, which were plying on the roads without valid documents.

“We have challaned 171 in overloading and 41 passenger vehicles were seized, which were plying without a fitness certificate, route permit and other offences, Alok Kumar said, adding that Rs 33,45,529 lakh has been realised as fine from the offenders, which was 57 per cent of the total fine realised last year.

In the past 75 days, the Traffic Police in this belt has challaned 12,126 vehicles under various offences like overloading, over-speeding, contravention of rout permit and other offences, which is 50 per cent of the challan realised last year.

Srinagar, May 19
Residents in some parts of Srinagar continued with their protests over the alleged murder of an Alucha Bagh resident by police personnel posted in the Special Operations Group even as police officials placed an inspector under suspension.

B Srinivas IG, Kashmir, said a high-level inquiry was on and the guilty, if any, would not be spared. The truth would be out soon.

Ever-sensitive Maisuma witnessed protest and stone-pelting. The police had to use mild force to disperse the protestors. Most of the shops in the area were closed but the main markets of the city were open. A few separatist politicians, including Jameel Ahmad War of the People’s Political Party, took out a procession against the death of Manzoor Ahmad Beig(40) father of three. “The SoG was established to fight militants. Why should they pick a civilian over petty money matters? The guilty must be punished,” Yusuf Parray, a protesting youth,said.

The administration has ordered a magisterial probe and police officials said they were also carrying out an inquiry to establish the truth.

However, some officials said the SoG was being portrayed as a villain unnecessarily and, prima facie, Manzoor’s death seemed to be natural. Significantly, the postmortem did not find any external injury on the body of the deceased. The cause of the death, as per the report, is brain haemorrhage, the police said

Manzoor, who dealt in vehicles, had reportedly some monetary dispute with another person, resulting in SOG intervention. His family members alleged that the rival party approached the SoG whose personnel picked him up and tortured him. When he died, they dumped his body outside a hospital and absconded.

An official said Manzoor himself came to the SoG office and collapsed apparently due to haemorrhage. “We did not torture him. The postmortem report very much emphasises our version,” he said.

District administration officials, however, refused comment over the issue, saying that the magisterial enquiry would bring out the truth. “We have begun the probe but any comment on his death would undermine the inquiry,” an official said.

Srinagar, May 19
The separatist APHC organised a day-long seminar entitled “Kashmir issue, plebiscite and election process” at its headquarters here today. It was organised as part of Hurriyat’s week-long commemorations ahead of the 19th death anniversary of Mirwaiz Moulvi Mohammad Farooq.

The Mirwaiz, father of Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, was killed by unidentified assailants at his Nigeen residence on May 21, 1990. As part of the week-long programme, the APHC has also announced to hold an “election rejection rally” at Idgah on May 21 saying the elections were no substitute to the right of self-determination. Senior APHC leader Abdul Ghani Lone was also killed at Idgah on May 21, 2002.

APHC chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq presided over the seminar and a number of leaders from different shades of opinion attended it. The Mirwaiz said it was a part of the functions to commemorate “sacrifices” by several leaders, including Moulvi Mohammad Farooq, Abdul Gani Lone of the APHC, and several others who fell to the bullets of the security forces at Hawal here on May 21, 1990.

The Mirwaiz said the APHC was not against democratic doctrines. The APHC had asked people to stay away from the elections with the intention that democratic norms be well defined, he added. He said the APHC believed in democracy and wanted to resolve the Kashmir issue through democratic means, by the mode of a referendum or plebiscite.

He said the Kashmir issue had both internal and external dimensions.

The internal dimension was that there were two parties -- India and Pakistan -- both directly related to the dispute while the basic party were the people of Kashmir. The external dimension, he said, were world powers watching the situation at a distance.

Rajouri, May 19
Government schools have failed to achieve the desired results, despite the state government’s efforts, which spends huge amount for the betterment of education.

Sources in the Education Department divulged that there are about eight government schools where the pass percentage of students in arts, medical, non-medical and commerce stream has been below 15 per cent in the class XII results declared yesterday by the Board of School Education (BOSE) in the state.

The schools which have shown poor results include Government Higher Secondary School (GHSS) Manjakote, GHSS Ghambir Mughlan, GHSS Kakora, GHSS Jamola, GHSS Samote, GHSS Dhandote, GHSS Fatehpur and GHSS Dhangri.

In GHSS Manjakote, of the 89 students who appeared in the arts stream, only nine managed to pass, thereby, registering pass percentage of just 10.11 per cent. In GHSS Ghambir Mughlan, of the 42 students who appeared in the arts and science streams, just four managed to pass, thereby taking pass percentage to slightly above nine per cent.

Just two students of the 26 of GHSS Kakora, who appeared in the arts and science examination, passed. GHSS Jamola registered a zero pass percentage as none of the 21 students (arts) managed to pass. Of the 37 students (arts) of the GHSS Samote, just three passed. In GHSS Dhandote, of the 10 students (arts), only one passed.

Of the 12 students who appeared in arts stream in GHSS Fatehpur, just one student passed. GHSS Dhangri, registered a pass percentage of slightly higher than seven per cent in arts stream. Sources in the education department attributed the low pass percentage of these schools to non-serious attitude of teaching staff as also poor infrastructure.

Director, School Education, Zahida Khan, told The Tribune that action would be taken against the teachers showing poor performance.

Jammu, May 19
Jammu University has served notice to two study centres, run by the University of Pondicherry and Maulana Azad National Urdu University, and has ordered immediate closure.

According to the statement issued here today, this was disclosed by Vikas Sharma, state president of the National Secular Forum (NSF), while addressing a press conference on the university campus.

He said this order had substantiated the claim of the forum, which alleged that all study centres of different universities were running in the Jammu province in gross violation of different government orders and the Sadar-e-Riayasti Ordinance (SRO).

Sharma said the SRO-339 of the state government clearly stated that the state universities had permitted only IGNOU and DOEACC for franchising of higher and technical education in the state and refrained others from doing so.

He alleged that their was a strong nexus between owners of private study centres and officials of the Higher Education Department, who have not issued any notice to them for their closures so far.

Rajouri, May 19
The police last evening arrested two persons for making fake appointments in the Agriculture Department. It also recovered foreign currency from them.

On a complaint that an intra-state gang has duped more than 25 unemployed youths of this district of lakhs of rupees, the police raided the house of an accused and seized fake appointment letters, identity cards, foreign currency (dollars), believed to be fake, from him.

Haq Nawaz and Muhammad Javed of Ranjil Morh in the Nowshera area had lodged a complaint against Muhammad Khaleel and his brother, Muhammad Parvez of Ghambir Mughlan, here in this connection.

The complainants alleged that some local persons in connivance with government officials of the Agriculture Department posted in valley were running a job racket and had duped more than 25 unemployed youths (Rs.1.5 lakh from each) on the pretext of getting them jobs in the Agriculture Department.

They added that the racketeeres even gave salary for two months to some of their victims to sound genuine.

One of the victims was given an appointment letters vide number CAO/Estt/Els/545-46 dated 19-06-2008, with endorsement of the Agriculture Minister vide letter number PA/03B dated 16-06-2008. Some of the victims were even made to serve in the Agriculture Department in Baramulla for a few months and paid money on a monthly basis, said a police source.

Rajouri SSP Shafqat Hussain Watali said: "Some of the government employees are most probably behind the racket and We would get them soon.”

Jammu, May 19
The state Department of Wildlife Protection is organising two weeks’ refresher course for range officer grade II, forest protection force inspectors/foresters/forest guards/wildlife guards/forest protection force guards. As part of the ongoing efforts for training and capacity building of the front line staff of the Forest and Wildlife Department for effective wildlife management in the state, the course started yesterday and will continue till May 30 at the Nature Interpretation Centre, Dachigam National Park.

Jenab Mian Altaf, Minister for Forests and Environment, inaugurated the training programme.

Altaf stressed the necessity of organising such programmes for effective wildlife management in the state. He highlighted the rich tradition of conservation in the state, and expressed concern over tremendous biotic pressure on our natural resources arising due to an increase in human and animal population, loss of forest cover, urbanisation and industrialisation that had caused wildlife habitats to shrink and even extinction of many important wildlife species.

The minister said the state government would make all efforts to strengthen the department by providing additional manpower, equipment, mobility, communication facilities, veterinary care and compensation package for effective control of wildlife crimes and handling of human-wild animal conflict situations.

Jammu, May 19
Though residents in Jammu this morning had a temporary respite from the scorching sun as the mild drizzle that lasted only a few minutes brought the morning temperature to 28.2°C, as the day passed on, the daytime temperature again started to soar, taking the temperature maximum to 41°C.

Officials of the Meteorological Department have ruled out any breather for the people of the Jammu region in the coming days as the daytime temperature in the region would continue to soar.

“The rise in temperature during this time is normal as the sun is closer to the earth. We don’t see a respite in the coming days,” Sonam Lotus, director of the Meteorological Department, said.

Meanwhile, city doctors have advised the people to be cautious and avoid sunstrokes as the cases of people suffering from heat and waterborne diseases have increased.

“The number of patients suffering from dehydration and waterborne diseases has increased. Everyday we have been receiving number of patients with loss of fluids in their body, so we give them intravenous fluids”, a doctor at GMC Jammu said.

The doctors say that as the day time temperature is being soaring with every passing day people should take extra care to prevent them from the sunstrokes due to heat-wave.

“People need to take lot of fluids, fruits, juices and salads are also good for the health, but while drinking water people should be extra cautious,” the doctor said.

Meanwhile, agriculturists in the region also don’t see the increasing heat as a good omen for the agriculture and horticultural sector of the Jammu province.

“There has been an increase in the diseases and insect attacks on the mango fruits of the region. The subtropical fruits need chilling hours that they don’t get and this would effect their cultivation,” Dr Ravi Kher head of the Department of Fruit Sciences, Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology, Jammu, said.

Srinagar, May 19
The state government today announced suitable incentives for doctors and paramedics who attended their duties beyond normal working hours.

All those doctors and paramedics who attend their duties after normal working hours would be given suitable incentives, state Health Minister Sham Lal Sharma said.

Similar incentives would be given to doctors who served in rural areas of the state, Sharma said during the inspection of a sub-district hospital at Pampore, 15 km from here, in Pulwama district.

He said the government was aware of the difficulties faced by doctors in far-flung areas and every effort would be made to compensate them suitably so that healthcare was further improved in the rural areas.

Sharma also underlined the need for “curbing” the referral system and said every district and sub-district hospital should ensure emergency services after duty hours.

The minister said more posts of specialists and paramedics were being created to overcome the shortage of manpower in rural areas.

A mechanism had been put in place to ensure the timely conduct of departmental promotion committees to facilitate promotions in various categories and other welfare measures for doctors and other employees of the Health Department. — PTI

Jammu, May 19
Acting on the directions of the High Court, the Jammu Municipal Corporation (JMC) along with the state police today sealed 84 banquet halls for running without official permission.

“Officials of the Enforcement Wing along with the police have raided over 84 banquet halls and sealed them. Their operations have been suspended henceforth on the direction of the High Court,” Municipal Commissioner Mubarak Singh said.

He said in order to ensure that all these 84 banquet halls were closed and are not functioning after the issuance of notices to them, the Municipal Officials alongwith police team visited different areas.

He said the raids were conducted after issuing notices to the banquet halls that were doing business without permission and the owners were asked to suspend operations till further orders.

Residents of these areas, where these banquet halls are situated, alleged that these banquet halls were functioning even after the issuance of notices to them for immediate closure.

The High Court on April 7 had issued the orders after a petition was filed by two persons, Puran Chand and Bansi Lal. The court also ordered that the banquet halls which have obtained proper permission should be allowed to run subject to condition that the music system, if any, shall be operated from 10 am to 10 pm.

The owners of these 84 banquet halls have been directed to appear in the High Court for hearing tomorrow.