Srinagar, July 11
Chief Minister Omar Abdullah inducted 13 minsters into the Cabinet here today.

Those inducted include eight Cabinet ministers, two ministers of state with independent charge and three ministers of state. While the Congress got seven berths, including an ally, Ghulam Hassan Mir of the Democratic Party, six MLAs from the NC were inducted into the council of ministers. The new ministers include seven from the Jammu region, five from the Kashmir valley and one from the Ladakh region.

Governor NN Vohra administered the oath of office and secrecy to the new ministers at the Sher-e-Kashmir International Conference Centre (SKICC) here this afternoon. Senior Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan and Union Minister for Renewable Energy Resources Farooq Abdullah, Pradesh Congress Committee chief Saifuddin Soz, other MPs and state legislators were present on the occasion.

The Chief Minister was already heading the NC-Congress government with 10 ministers, five from the Congress and four from the NC. With today’s expansion, the strength has gone up to 23, while both the coalition partners have kept vacant a seat each in the council of ministers that are expected to be filled at a later stage.

Those inducted today were MLAs, except Rajinder Singh Chib, who is an MLC. Rajinder had been a Cabinet minister in the NC-Congress government of Farooq Abdullah in 1987.

Another former minister of the PDP, Ghulam Hassan Mir, who had left the PDP and constituted the Jammu and Kashmir Democratic Party, was also been made a minister as an ally of the Congress.

Of the eight Cabinet ministers, six are former ministers, while Abdul Ghani Malik from Gulabgarh in the Jammu region and Agha Syed Rohulla from Budgam in Kashmir, both from the NC, are new faces.

The newly inducted Cabinet ministers are Qamar Ali Akhoon, RS Chib, Ghulam Hassan Mir, Sakina Ittoo, Raman Bhalla, GM Saroori, Abdul Ghani Malik and Agha Syed Rohulla.

The two ministers of state with independent charge are Ajaz Ahmad Khan, a former minister, and Manohar Lal Sharma, a new face.

The ministers of state are Shabir Ahmad Khan, Nasir Aslam Wani and Javed Ahmad Dar, all of them new faces.

Jammu, July 11
The work to clean the Sanasar lake started almost a month ago has come to a halt.

When The Tribune carried a story on the pathetic condition of the Sanasar lake, which had not been cleaned for the past three years, SK Sahni, Director, Department of Tourism, had then claimed to get the lake cleaned in 10 days. Though the cleaning work had started, the lake still looked marshy and full of weeds even after a month.

Sahni said the weeds and algae, which were removed, had grown again. Villagers said the work never progressed beyond a patch in the lake that looks clean.

Meawhile, Tourism Minister Nawang Rigzin Zora has assured that he would direct the Director, Tourism, Jammu, to investigate the matter. Sahni also refuted the assertion by workers working at the lake that the work had been stopped midway due to the paucity of funds. He said, “The manual part of the work has been done. It is only the weeds and mud that have been dug out and collected on the sides are being removed. Either that will be disposed of or villagers will use them as manure. The department has no dearth of funds.”

Sahni also informed that he had asked for the services of the Lake and Water Bodies Development Authority, which also managed the Dal lake in Srinagar, to prepare a project suggesting measures to keep the Sanasar lake clean of weeds and algae through scientific methods.

Besides he said the department would use water jets for the purpose.

Udhampur, July 11
After getting nod from an expert committee to restart suspended work on the Katra-Qazigund railway track, a team of Railway officers today inspected some sites to accelerate work on the Kashmir railway project.

A team of Railway officers headed by Rakesh Chopra, member of the Railway Engineering Board, first visited Sangaldan-Gool and later inspected work on a tunnel at Banihal. The 11-km-long under-construction T-80 tunnel, known as ‘Pir Panchal’ tunnel, is to be commissioned is the longest transport tunnel in the country. Construction of this tunnel is the greatest engineering challenge along with the Chenab bridge, which involves a height of 359 m above the riverbed.

According to the Railway authorities, the New Austrian Tunnelling Method has been adopted for its construction.

Conventionally, the tunnelling work is progressed on both ends of the tunnel. This tunnel is being a very long tunnel so it was decided to start the tunnelling from both the faces.

The other silent feature of this tunnel include the highest over-burden of 1,100 m and the first use of ‘road header’ for tunnel excavation in the Railway tunnelling and has the deepest ‘drill holes’ for geo-technical investigations 640 m. The estimated cost of tunnel is about Rs 647 crore and the state of art technology is being adopted to ensure proper ventilation, fire fighting and safety monitoring.

Although the visiting officers did not specify the exact date of the completion of this project, they hinted out that the work on the track would be completed as early as possible.

The work was suspended on the 70-km stretch in the Katra-Qazigund section as the proposed alignment was found to be too problematic. The Katra-Qazigund section has been standstill for the past 10 months as the Northern Railways authorities have found the alignment faulty. A seven-member expert committee headed by former Railway Board chairman M Ravindra was constituted last December to suggest possible new alignment in the section after the suspension of the work.

On June 24, this committee had given green signal to restart suspended work on the Katra-Qazigund section of the Kashmir rail link project.

Rajouri, July 11
A teenager boy was killed while two girls were seriously injured when an explosive material they were playing with exploded in the Bhatti Dhar area of Mendhar Tehsil in Poonch district this morning.

Police sources said Waqar Ahmed (14), son of Shabir Ahmed of Bhatti Dhar, died on the spot, while two of his friends Sayeda Akhter (17), daughter of Muhammad Younus, and Nahila, daughter of Muhammad Ibrahim of the same village, were seriously injured after the unclaimed object they were fiddling with exploded around 9 am.

The sources added that after the blast, the teenagers were shifted to the Sub-district Hospital, Mendhar, from where the seriously injured were airlifted in an Air Force chopper to the Government Medical College and Hospital, Jammu. The body of the boy was handed over to his family after post-mortem.

The police sources said a police team comprising DSP, Mendhar, Rajinder Singh Katoch and SHO, Mendhar, Farooq Hussain Shah reached the spot. A case has been registered.

Srinagar, July 11
Seven persons, including a jawan, were injured in a grenade explosion at Magam in Budgam district, while one person was arrested with cartridges near the airport here today.

The Army has apprehended two Pakistani militants from the Chowkibal area of Kupwara district in north Kashmir and handed them over to the police.

The police here said suspected militants hurled a grenade towards a parked vehicle of the security forces outside the Sub District Hospital, Magam, which exploded injuring seven persons, including a jawan.

A cartridge of .30 mm was detected from the baggage of a passenger by the airport security today. The passenger, Harinder Singh Rathi, a resident of Dehradun, Uttarakhand, was scheduled to travel by air to Delhi in Kingfisher flight. During x-ray of his baggage, a cartridge of .30 mm was detected by the airport security, the police here said. He was taken into custody and a case was registered.

Udhampur, July 11
To meet the demand of the one crore pilgrims expected to visit Vaishno Devi shrine annually, the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board (SMVDSB) has drawn up a major expansion plan.

“Our first priority is to increase accommodation facilities for the pilgrims,” additional chief executive officer of the SMVDSB MK Dewadi said. He said the board had decided to construct Durga Bhawan with a capacity of 1,000 pilgrims at bhawan, followed by a dormitory at Adh Kuwari where about 700 devotees can be accommodated.

As poor devotees, who could not afford private hostels, face hardships at the time of compulsory waiting, the board has decided to construct Ashirbad Bhawan with a capacity of accommodate more than 3,000 pilgrims. At the proposed Ashirbad Bhawan the devotees would be provided free of cost accommodation as well as yatra slips.

To facilitate free flow of devotees, the board has also planned third tunnel but the proposal has yet not finalised. The board has drawn a comprehensive plan to create state-of-the-art infrastructure to meet the future target of one crore pilgrim turnout annually.

It is believed that after construction of third tunnel at the shrine, the rush of devotees would end. Presently, a devotee gets just five seconds to have a glimpse of pindies (goddess) inside the cave and some complain of not having ‘darshan’ at all. After the third tunnel become operational, a devotee can get a time of over 30 seconds.

Jammu, July 11
Even as the Kashmir valley continues to simmer over the Shopian and Baramulla incidents followed by the rape and murder of another girl, allegedly by an Army soldier in Tregam in Kupwara , Amarnath pilgrims have been leaving the winter capital for the valley during night without any security cover.

“It has come to our notice that several pilgrims, local and outsiders, have been leaving Jammu in the night for their journey to the cave shrine without security cover,” said a senior police officer.

Another police officer at the Yatri Niwas base camp here said ever since the annual pilgrimage began on July 15, only 40,000 pilgrims had left for the cave shrine from the Yatri Niwas base camp under security cover but the total arrival at Baltal and Pahalgam has touched the 2.50 lakh mark. It clearly shows that a majority of the pilgrims are now leaving on their own for the cave shrine, he added.

Sources in the counter-intelligence wing of the police felt that there was no risk whatsoever to the pilgrims, particularly those leaving on their own. “Track records show that militants often target Amarnath pilgrims, who visit the valley under security cover because by doing so they succeed in inviting attention of the world media,” they said.

Talking to this correspondent at Nagrota last evening, some pilgrims, who were on their way to the valley, were bothered little about security. “We are here for the fourth time. Leaving for the valley without going to Jammu base camp saves our time,” said Sudhir Gupte, one of the pilgrims from Pune.

Another pilgrim Akhilesh Kamle said:“ There is no fear whatsoever in our minds but only a burning desire to pay obeisance at the cave shrine”

Meanwhile, a fresh batch of 1735 pilgrims left the Yatri Niwas base camp for the valley yesterday, said SP Benam Tosh, security in charge of the base camp.

Jammu, July 11
Even as Chief Minister Omar Abdullah expanded the Council of Minsters in Srinagar today, the PDP termed the government a complete failure.

The PDP alleged that people were facing miseries due to the wrong policies of the coalition government. Senior party leaders and functionaries, while addressing a meeting of the zonal president and other senior workers of the party at Jammu, called upon the party cadres to take the message of the party to every part of the region.

Senior leaders and workers of the party participated in the meeting and deliberated upon various issues to strengthen the party at the grass-roots level.

Terming the Congress-NC regime a total failure on all fronts, party general secretary Thakur Balbir Singh exhorted party workers to expose the misdeeds of the government. He reiterated the commitment of the party to fill the political vacuum created after “opportunist alliance between the Congress and the NC”.

Thakur reminded people that during the Assembly elections the NC had promised to recruit eighth pass youths in the police, but after attaining power the promise remain unfulfilled.

He further recalled that all senior NC leaders had promised to provide a stipend to educated unemployed youths. “Except promises, the NC has done nothing for people,” he said.

Party secretary and MLA Sayed Asgar Ali said the PDP would aggressively take up the issues related to people.

Jammu, July 11
Justice JP Singh of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court of Judicature at Jammu has directed the IG, crime, Srinagar, to appear in person along with records and material on the basis of which he had directed the closure of the murder case of Ghulam Ahmed Rather, a childhood friend of former Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad.

Ghulam, a former sarpanch and NC block president of Khaljugasar panchayat was found murdered on November 16, 2006, in Gandoh tehsil of Doda district.

While hearing a contempt petition filed by Ghulam Rasool Rather, Justice JP Singh directed Additional Advocate General PC Sharma to ensure the presence of the IG, crime, Srinagar, on the next date of hearing on July 16.

Earlier appearing on behalf of the state, Sharma informed the high court that the IG, crime headquarters, Srinagar, had conveyed him vide CBH/FIR-22/07/Gandoh-9344 dated July 9, 2009, that finding deficient evidence, he had closed the case as untraced. Advocate Sheikh Shakeel Ahmad appeared on behalf of the petitioner.

Ironically, DSP, crime, Ashok Kumar Chib, who initially investigated the case registered under Section 302, 341 and 109 RPC at Gundoh police station, had found seven persons guilty of murdering Ghulam Ahmed Rather.

The investigation was ordered to be monitored by the DIG, crime, and the Railways, Jammu, in terms of the directions passed by the high court on April 7, 2008, while disposing of other writ petition.

Natha Singh, Sher Ali, Faquir Mohammad, Jaswant Singh, SPO, Sunil Kumar, SPO, Mohammad Ishaq, SPO, and Abdul Rashid, who is a PRO of sitting MLA from Bhaderwah Mohammad Sahrief Niaz, were found guilty of murdering Ghulam Rather.

It was during the currency of the contempt proceedings in the court that the DIG, crime, filed a detailed report, concurring with the conclusion reached by the investigating officer.

Justice JP Singh also ordered that in view of the investigating officer’s report and the concurrence of his findings and conclusion by the DIG, crime, it became necessary to know as to on what basis the IG, crime, had concluded that the evidence in the case was deficient, requiring closure of the case as untraced and that too within a few days.

Samba, July 11
Peeved over nonchalant attitude of the state government in probing the killings of human rights activists in a militant attack in Samba last year, leaders of the Internationalist Democratic Party (IDP) today launched a chain-hunger strike and demanded a judicial probe.

On first death anniversary of Hoshiar Singh and his wife Shashi Bala, the IDP said the government failed to establish motive behind the killings of the peace activists on May 11 last year.

Sources close to the family of slain couple said for the past one year nobody from the state government visited surviving members to record their statements.

After a day-long dharna here yesterday, the protesters started a chain-hunger strike at Hari Singh Chowk here, demanding judicial inquiry so that facts of the matter were brought to the fore.

In first batch senior leader Des Raj and veteran leader Kartar Chand started the hunger strike.

While addressing the gathering, state party president ID Khajuria expressed surprise over criminal silence of the state government over the entire incident. Khajuria demanded probe by the Omar Abdullah government into the incident, which he felt was still shrouded in mystery.

Two heavily armed terrorists attacked garrison town of Samba on May 11 last year killing six persons, including a politician, his wife, two soldiers and a senior photojournalist, yet the investigating authorities have not been able to unravel the mystery and the conspirators.

Udhampur, July 11
Even as the authorities are tight-lipped over any headway in the Kishtwar bank robbery case, the police has reportedly singled out four employees of Jammu and Kashmir Bank for being directly or indirectly involved in the robbery.

Police sources said investigations were almost complete and the involvement of bank employees in the robbery had been established. A team of forensic experts had also pointed out the connivance of some employees.

The sources further revealed that some bank employees had deliberately kept money in two boxes to facilitate the robbery. “Instead of keeping the money in the chest of the strong room, some employees kept it in two boxes, thus indicating their involvement in the case,” the sources said.

Burglars struck at the main branch of Jammu and Kashmir Bank at Kishtwar town on July 8 and decamped with about Rs 1 crore.

On the very first day of the robbery, the police had pointed toward the involvement of employees as the chest in the strong room of the bank was safe and the burglars took away the money kept in the two boxes.

Jammu, July 11
Satellite images of the states taken by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) have led to shocking revelations. Tracts of forest areas and uncultivated patches of land in the region are found to be under illegal poppy cultivation. This in turn has exposed the presence of a drug mafia with terror links.

The Director of the Narcotics Control Bureau, Jammu zone, disclosed information here on Tuesday. The NCB’s images show that southern parts of Kashmir such as Doda, Kishtwar, Ramban, Banihal, Udhampur and also the border belt in Poonch and Rajouri regions are being extensively used for poppy cultivation.

Armed with these satellite images, the NCB is gearing up to conduct a physical surveillance to identify the exact location of the narcotics cultivated fields so that they can be destroyed at earliest.

“This satellite imaging is taken for the first time in the areas of Jammu and Kashmir and some other states are also included in this operation. The imaging operation has already been completed. Now that the areas are spotted by the satellite, we have to conduct surveillance physically,” said M K Sharma, zonal director, NCB, Jammu.

The NCB believes that the involvement of terror groups cannot be ruled out in poppy cultivation.

“Some militant groups are involved in this illicit cultivation. In 2007, during an operation in Anantnag and Pulwama firing was witnessed, and police forces had also retaliated. So we cannot rule out that militants resorted to firing,” Sharma added.

Money generated from poppy cultivation in countries like Afghanistan has been used for funding terror activities in the region. — ANI