Srinagar, July 7
The group spearheading the agitation in Shopian for nabbing the culprits behind the alleged rape and murder of two women today demanded the arrest of the suspended officials and made an emotional appeal to the Prime Minister for justice while expressing lack of faith in the state government.

“PM Manmohan Singh is also a father of daughters and he should see to it that justice is done to the family of Neelofar Jan and Aasiya Jan. The government seems to continue to shield the guilty,” the spokesperson of Majlis-e-Mashawarat said at a press conference as the victims’ family members narrated their tale of agony.

Neelofar’s husband, Shakil Ahmad Ahangar, said all four suspended cops, including the then SP Javed Iqbal Mattoo, should be arrested and interrogated first before the authorities decide to exhume both women’s bodies for a fresh post-mortem. Only this, he said, would show the government’s sincerity.

The majlis and the victims’ family also expressed lack of faith in the ongoing judicial probe, whose interim report indicted cops and doctors for a cover-up, leading to the suspension of seven officials, and said it had been insensitive and made little attempts to reach out to witnesses.

The commission had also recommended the prosecution of four cops and a forensic official, but the government has so far refrained from registration a case, which would almost necessitate their arrests due to the gravity of allegations levelled by the commission against them.

The probe, headed by Justice Muzaffar Jan (retd), is expected to submit its complete report in two orthree days. The majlis said there was no doubt that those responsible for the rape and murder were from the police and the CRPF as both had establishment very close to the spots where the bodies of two women were found on May 30 morning.

Shakil narrated the sequence of events on the intervening night of May 29 and May 30 and alleged that cops were busy in planning a cover-up even as they sympathised with him. He said the way the then SHO spotted the body of his wife at a place he had searched already with a few cops in the night and found nothing, and the subsequent deliberate attempts by the police and doctors to dismiss the deaths due to drowning were strong proof of their involvement.

New Delhi, July 7
Ruling out any immediate withdrawal of CRPF from Jammu and Kashmir, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah today said before considering any such step the state police had to be augmented in numbers, equipment and levels of training.

Abdullah, who had meetings with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Home Minister P Chidambaram here yesterday, said he had raised the issue of withdrawal of the controversial Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) in a phased manner.

Reorganisation of security forces figured during his meetings, Omar told PTI.

On the issue of withdrawal of CRPF from the state, he said the J and K police "is not immediately ready" to fill all the gaps. "The CRPF withdrawal has to be as per a plan" and simultaneously the state police will have to gear up to be at the forefront of the anti-militancy operations.

"We have over 70 battalions of the CRPF and the state police’s strength is not even one-third of it. Five battalions of the state police which includes India Reserve Police are undergoing training. So any rash decision in this aspect can be detrimental to state’s security,” he said.

"A lot is required to be done in terms of augmenting the numbers of J and K police, upgrading their equipment and improving their levels of training," he said.

Abdullah made it clear that there was no move to replace CRPF in the near future as this may lead to a vacuum.

"The issue of AFSPA was flagged by me and the Union Home Minister in the first meeting itself and now we are toying with an idea of having it withdrawn in a phased manner ....where the violence is nil or bare minimum, in such areas this law need not be applicable," the Chief Minister, who has completed six months in office, said.

The Chief Minister said he had assured people in his state that the AFSPA will be withdrawn..

"I have held a series of meetings earlier with the Union Home Minister. Even the Centre has said that it is reviewing the Act," he said.

While the Chief Minister remained non-committal about the areas where the AFSPA would be made non-applicable, sources in the Home Ministry said the Centre was likely to explore possibility of phased withdrawal of the anti-terror law in two districts of Kashmir- Srinagar and Budgam - and two in Jammu region - Jammu and Kathua -- as these districts have registered minimum violence for past one year. — PTI 

Srinagar, July 7
Vyas Purnima, also known as Guru Puranmashi, was marked by a special pooja at the Amarnath cave shrine this morning with devotees chanting religious hymns and paying obeisance at the sanctum sanctorum.

BB Vyas, chief executive officer of the SASB, other officers of the board and the civil administration joined the devotees in offering the pooja and praying for peace and universal brotherhood.

In the yesteryears, the Vyas Purnima marked the commencement of the Amarnath pilgrimage. In the recent years, the yatra has become a two-month affair.

A large number of devotees kept thronging the cave shrine from both Pahalgam and Baltal routes on the 22nd day of its commencement today, while the pilgrimage was in progress smoothly, a spokesman for the SASB said. Over two lakh pilgrims had performed darshan at the cave shrine so far.

According to the spokesman, 3,000 pilgrims left the Nunwan base camp (Pahalgam) and 4,929 pilgrims left the Baltal base camp for the holy cave this morning.

Similarly, another batch of 1,920 yatris left Jammu for the Nunwan and Baltal base camps today, he added.

Vyas discussed the arrangements made in the cave shrine’s periphery, particularly with regard to cleanliness and sanitation, with the officers of the shrine board and the civil administration. He also took stock of the facilities being provided by various utility departments, especially health services.

Vyas also took an extensive round of the Baltal base camp and reviewed the functioning of various service providers. He discussed with the local officers the arrangements put in place for the smooth conduct of the yatra. 

Udhampur, July 7
Government Higher Secondary School, Lander, which was upgraded in 2006, has been functioning without a single permanent lecturer. Lander, the remotest village of Udhampur districts is 52 km away from Udhampur town.

Interestingly, about 100 students have been enrolled in both arts and science streams in the school but just one Urdu lecturer has been appointed on contract to teach plus two classes.

Insensitivity of the higher-ups of the Education Department has forced students and their parents to come out on the streets to draw attention of the authorities towards their problems. Students, joined by locals, have started an indefinite strike in the area in support of their demand. “For the past three months we have been agitating for the deployment of adequate staff in the school but to no avail”, regretted Jagdev Singh, president of the Students Association.

A delegation of the students along with some prominent persons of Lander met the district administration and the Chief Education Officer (CEO), Udhampur, on June 25 and drew their attention towards the problems being faced by Class XI and Class XII students due to the non-availability of lecturers. “The authorities had promised to deploy the teachers within a week ”, he said, but nothing concrete had been done so far.

This school was upgraded three years back but various posts, including those of principal and 14 lecturers, were apprved only this session. “We have already invited applications for appointment of contractual lecturers and the shortage of staff would be removed shortly”, Udhampur CEO Vidhya Rattan Sharma told the Tribune. 

Udhampur, July 7
Eight persons, including three brothers, were killed when an oil tanker, in which they were travelling, skidded off the road and fell into a deep nullah near Ramban on the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway this morning. The majority of the dead were locals, who had hitched a ‘lift’ on the vehicle.

The oil tanker was on its way to Srinagar from Jammu when the driver lost control over it while negotiating a blind curve at Chanderkote and it fell into the Kunfer nullah.

A police team headed by SP, Ramban, Mubassar Latifee rushed to the spot and started rescue operations. Locals also assisted the police. All occupants of the oil tanker were taken to the hospital, where doctors pronounced all of them brought dead. The killed brothers have been identified as Rattan Chand, 30, Shanker Chand, 25 and Gufta 18, all sons of Shankero, a resident of Paperian Chanderkote, Ramban.

Srinagar, July 7
Unhappy over delay in completing a rail link between Kashmir and Jammu, state Congress chief Saifuddin Soz has sought a probe to ascertain why a realignment finalised earlier had gone wrong costing time and loss of Rs 300 crore.

He stated this during his meeting with Railway Minister Mamta Banerjee in the capital today. Soz held that he lodged a protest with the Railway Minister for the considerable delay in completing the railway line between Katra and Banihal and then from Banihal to Qazigund in Kashmir.

“I have told her that some experts feel that new alignment (Katra-Banihal) will mean a delay in completion of the track between Katra and Qazigund by 10 years,” he stated.

Soz also sought the Railway Minister to give orders for extending the railway line from Baramulla to Kupwara while she would be looking into realignment between Katra and Banihal.

The Railway Minister in her budget speech said the Anantnag-Qazigund rail link would be completed next month.

The work on this vital link is on while the train services within the valley were inaugurated by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh between Anantnag and Rajwansheer (Budgam) here on October last year.

It was later extended to Baramulla in north Kashmir that was flagged off by UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi on February 14. With the completion of work on the Qazigund-Anantnag stretch, the 119-km-long rail link between Qazigund in south Kashmir and Baramulla in the north would be complete.

Jammu, July 7
Demanding open admission for the first year students of BA, BSc, BCom regular courses, who could not find their names on the merit lists, the Jammu Joint Students’ Federation (JJSF) held a protest against college principals and the Jammu University authorities for the fourth consecutive day today.

Girl students led by Partap Singh Jamwal, state vice-president of the JJSF, assembled in front of Government College for Women, Gandhi Nagar, and gheraoed the principal for one-and-half hour. The principal announced that she would give admission to all students who had submitted their pre-admission forms.

She also assured the students that the admission process would start from July 8 and continue up to July 11. She would also look into the cases of those students who had not filled pre-admission forms.

The procession then proceeded to Government College for Women, Parade, where Pushvinder Singh Manhas, state president of the JJSF, discussed the problems of the students with the principal of the college.

The principal assured the students that she would admit all students of arts and science streams, but there were fewer seats in the commerce stream.

She would hold a meeting with the Commissioner/Secretary regarding this issue, who was arriving from Srinagar tomorrow, she added.

Jammu, July 7
A seven-member deputation of polythene manufacturers and industrialists of Jammu met Minister for Industries Surjeet Singh Salathia today and apprised him of the miseries being faced by them after the government imposed a blanket ban on the sale, storage, transportation and use of polythene bags.

They said the ban had rendered jobless about 20,000 persons engaged directly in the manufacture and trade of polythene bags.

The manufacturers who had invested huge amounts in their units after taking loans from banks besides investing their own hard-earned money found themselves helpless since their units had been lying closed for the past over one month.

The minister assured them of taking up the matter with the Chief Minister and finding a way out to redress their grievances and ensure that no one was rendered jobless.

Salathia said that as the minister in charge of industries, it was his responsibility to promote industry and see that healthy industrial units did not get sick.

Udhampur, July 7
Demanding action against officers of the Agriculture Department responsible for the failure of the maize crop, social activists and dissident Congress leader RS Pathania has alleged that sub-standard and eaten up maize seeds were distributed among farmers of the Majalata area of Ramnagar .

In a statement issued here , Pathania said sub-standard seeds were distributed at the rate of Rs 35 per kg in the current season. “The maize crop has already been affected due to the deficient monsoon,” he said. “The distribution of sub-standard seeds has further compounded the woes of the farmers,” he added. He alleged that the Agriculture Department had played a cruel joke on poor farmers.

He served an ultimatum on the authorities concerned to take action against those who had supplied the sub-standard seeds and demanded  compensation for the affected farmers.

Pathania, who had conducted an extensive tour of Majalata, also demanded a degree and an ITI college there. He also demanded the creation of basic infrastructure at the tehsil headquarters Majatala to make it fully functional. He also called for target-oriented implementation of the NREGA scheme in Majalata, Ramnagar and Dudu blocks of Ramnagar.