Jammu, October 9
President Pratibha Patil said today India’s defence forces would be given the “best weapons in the world to take on anyone who dared to violate the country’s borders”. She was addressing soldiers in the Rajouri garrison today after arriving in the morning on a day’s visit to areas along the line of control with Pakistan.

She urged the troops to be vigilant and maintain a high degree of preparedness for meeting any eventualities along the border areas. She expressed her full satisfaction on the exemplary work being done by all ranks towards tackling terrorism and ensuring normalcy in Jammu and Kashmir. “Every citizen of India is proud of you all,” she added.

Earlier in the day the president visited troops in the forward areas where she was briefed on the prevailing security situation. She later addressed troops at the Raina stadium in Rajouri.

During her address the president lauded the Indian army’s role in maintaining peace and tranquillity in the region. She also praised the Army for its efforts to improve civilian infrastructure.

She also appreciated the role played by the Army in providing valuable help to civilians in far-flung areas of the state by rendering medical aid, educational and other civic amenities despite their strenuous military duties.

During her address the president conveyed her gratitude to the families of all ranks who had made the supreme sacrifice in their line of duty for the defence of the nation. She also acknowledged the contribution of families of army personnel for providing the much needed support and motivation to the troops in discharging their duties under difficult conditions.

Jammu, October 9
The interfaith marriage controversy between a Hindu boy from Jammu and a Muslim girl from Srinagar, which led to the mysterious death of the boy in Srinagar police custody, turned grim when the girl here today accused her parents of conniving with the police to murder her husband.

Anchal Sharma, alias Amina Yousuf, resurfaced today and reached her in-laws’ house, where she accused her parents of killing her husband and demanded that a murder case be lodged against them.

Breaking down, she said she not only lost her husband but also the baby inside her womb. “When the police raided my brother-in-law Pawan’s house in Rehari on September 21, I tried to escape in panic. But in the process stumbled and lost my baby,” she said.

“I changed my religion and married Rajnish out of my own choice. There was no pressure on me,” the 25-year-old girl said.

“We were in love for the past seven years and, in fact, I forced Rajnish to marry me,” said a wailing Anchal sitting close to her husband’s body.

“We married before a Jammu court and solemnised our marriage at an Arya Samaj mandir on August 21. Since then we had been on the run to save our lives,” she added.

Anchal accused her father Mohammed Yousuf Mirazi and two brothers of hatching a conspiracy with the police to eliminate her husband.

“One of my brothers, a doctor, may flee to Australia. Arrest him before he leaves the country. My father had bribed the Kashmir police to kill my husband,” she said. She also refused to go back to her parental house in Srinagar and now wants to live with her in-laws. Rajnish’s elder brother Pawan Sharma, an SRTC employee who hasn’t received salaries for the past six months, said his brother was the sole breadwinner in the family.

He demanded a CBI probe into his brother’s death, a job for the widow, compensation for the family and booking of the police officers who kidnapped and murdered Rajnish.

Later, Jammu Deputy Commissioner MK Dwivedi visited the grief-stricken family.

“The girl told me that she was a major and was not forced to marry. A magisterial probe has already been ordered in Srinagar and hence it is not required here. But we would certainly brief the magistrate about certain things conveyed by the girl and other family members,” said Dwivedi.

Meanwhile, in a late evening development, the state government conceded the demands of the family.

“We have agreed to provide employment and ex-gratia relief to the family besides ensuring an impartial magisterial probe that would be taken to its logical conclusion,” a government spokesperson said. “The family has now agreed to cremate the body at 8 am tomorrow,” he informed.

A number of Hindu organisations have also demanded a CBI probe into the incident.

Jammu, October 9
The studies of around 4,500 college students of commerce and computer science subjects of the Jammu province are suffering as the contracts of around 150 contractual lecturers were not renewed for the past one month. These lecturers are waiting for renewal of their contracts and are not coming to the colleges for the past 15 days.

According to Suresh Sadotra, provincial president of the Contractual College Lecturers Association, the reason for the delay in the renewal of contracts was that two lecturers of computer science and commerce subjects had done their M.Phil through distance mode.

“They had filed a case in the Court due to which the contracts of other 150 teachers are left withheld,” he said. Sadotra said: “Though Minister for Higher Education AG Malik assured that he will look into the issue and talk to the legal section for the solution, nothing has been done.”

“Keeping in view the sufferings of the students and as per the court orders, the government should consider these two persons as lecturers and release renewed list of lecturers as soon as possible,” Sadotra said.

There are around 40 commerce and computer science colleges in the province, in which around 1,500 BCA students and over 3,000 commerce students are suffering due to delay in the release of the list of contractual lecturers.

“The worst affected college is SPRM Commerce College, where 1,500 commerce and computer science students have been affected,” Sadotra said. “We have 14 contractual lecturers in our college, out of which 11 are not coming as their contract were not renewed,” Pankaj Sharma, contractual lecturer of the college, said. To deal with the situation, former students of the college are taking the classes so far.

The contractual lecturers are also demanding enhancement of salaries and policy for their regularisation.

Srinagar, October 9
Asserting that Buddhism has played a vital role in the socio-economic development of the state, Nawang Rigzin Jora, Minister for Tourism and Culture, has stressed the need for the preservation of its rich cultural heritage and age-old manuscripts.

Jora was addressing a valedictory function of the 9th annual session of the Indian Society for Buddhist Studies (ISBS) conference organised by the Department of Saniskrit, Kashmir University, here on Wednesday. The theme of the three-day conference was “Role of Kashmir in Development of Buddhism”.

The minister said Kashmir having multicultural civilisation had been the home for world famous religions like Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. He said these religions had produced renowned personalities, intellectuals, scholars and historians who had contributed a lot to shape the civilisations of various parts of the world. He said the Buddhism spread to other areas like Ladakh, Tibet and China from Kashmir as it had been one of the ancestral places of this religion.

Riyaz Punjabi, Vice-Chancellor of Kashmir University, R. Krishna Rao, Chairman of the Indian Council for Philosophical Research, New Delhi, Goda Vari Mishra, Member Secretary, Indian Council for Philosophical Research, Saleem Beigh, convener of the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage and the former Director General Tourism also addressed the gathering on the occasion and highlighted the significant role played by Budism in the history of the State.

Riyaz Punjabi said in the current world of economic crisis finding our inner wealth was a valuable spiritual gift.

Jammu, October 9
Though the state has given Urdu the status of official language under Article 143, it does not have a single Urdu Academy. Eminent Urdu scholars have decided to come together and press upon their demands to establish an Urdu academy in the state.

Shohab Inayat Malik, head of the Urdu Department, said: “It is ironical that successive governments have been ignoring this important issue. Former Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah promised to build one Urdu academy and inaugurated a site at Sidhara in 1996, but nothing happened after that. Mohammad Shami Uri, former Education Minister, asked for the blueprint of the Urdu academy. We gave him the blueprint, he too did nothing. Now we have decided to raise the issue together before Education Minister Abdul Gani Malik, who is likely to come to the Urdu Department at Jammu University on November 11.”

Amin Banjara, noted Urdu writer, said Urdu language should be strengthened under the Academy of Art, Culture and Language (AACL), which will serve the same purpose that of an academy. The government has opened a separate Urdu Department in the AACL on August 6. AACL secretary Jafar Iqbal said: “The government has constituted a four-member panel to look into the activities of the Urdu Department and allocated an yearly fund of Rs 20 lakh.”

He said this step would help in propagation of Urdu language as the fund would be judiciously used in paying royalty to Urdu writers, salaries to Urdu teachers, for organising seminars and many other such activities.

But Sheikh Abdul Rahman, noted activist, said: “Merely creating and strengthening the Urdu Department would not be enough. I had recommended establishment of an Urdu academy but it did not happen. As per the clause of 1956, which declared Urdu as official language, it is only used by departments of Revenue, Cooperative and Police Diary while others do their official work in English only. This is contempt of court. I have also filed a writ in the high court.”

Jammu, October 9
Justice JP Singh of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court has quashed a labour court’s award of March 31, 2003, holding that the labour court erred in entertaining the worker’s claim, who had since proceeded on voluntary retirement, in that, having proceeded on voluntary retirement, they ceased to be “workmen” as defined under Section 2 (s) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947.

The management of Hindustan Lever Ltd., filed a writ petition seeking the quashing of the award of the labour court, Jammu, of March 31, 2003, whereby, relying on its earlier award of February 28, 2003, the labour court held that the payment made by the petitioner company to its workers on voluntary retirement was illegal and bad in law.

It held that the workers were entitled to compensation equal to the highest, paid to similarly placed workers, on the basis of their status, length of service and grade allowed on application under Section 33-C (2) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 while appointing a commissioner to assess the amount of compensation due to the respondent workers, in terms of award dated February 28, 2003.

The Judge, while allowing the writ petition, observed that “there is, therefore, no denial of the fact that at the time of the respondents’ moving the labour court under Section 33-C (2) of the Act there was no adjudication of any type, whatsoever, on central issues between the parties, as to the entitlement or otherwise of the respondent workers to voluntary retirement benefits more than the one given to them by the company under the prevalent voluntary retirement scheme, or as to whether or not the petitioner company’s act of sanctioning their voluntary retirement was justified and valid in law, besides other issues.”

The high court ruled that “the claims, which were thus projected by the respondent workers and which had been allowed by the labour court, were not based on any existing right of the respondent workers to the monetary benefits allowed to them by the labour court, or on any pre-judged rights of theirs. The petitioner company’s plea that the labour court had no jurisdiction to entertain the respondent workers’ claims, therefore, succeeds.”

Srinagar, October 9
The security forces last night gunned down a Pakistani militant in Pulwama, who was planning a fidayeen attack in Srinagar, the police said today.

Omer Maviya, who had been active in the valley for the last several years and was currently affiliated with the Hizbul Mujahideen, was desperate over “lack of action” and had decided to carry out some spectacular attack in Srinagar. The police was tipped-off about his movement and joined by Army and CRPF personnel, the militant was killed at Gusoo in Pulwama, where forests had seen major Army operations in the last three days.

The police has seized 30 kg of explosives, besides an AK gun and other ammunition and sources said an explosive-laden jacket was also found from the encounter site.

Maviya had started with Hizbul Mujahideen about seven years back and had switched to the Jaish-e-Mohammad before revering to the Hizbul Mujahideen again.

The Army had earlier killed another senior Hizbul commander on Wednesday. A resident of Tral in south Kashmir, Mudassir, alias Bilal, was an improvised explosive device expert.

Jammu, October 9
SRTC employees today welcomed the statement of Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and suspended the “jail bharo andolan” for three days.

“We welcome the statement of the Chief Minister in which he admitted that the department needed to be revamped urgently. There was a need to introduce more busses and make the corporation a profitable venture,” Ashok Mehra, president of the SRTC Employees Union, told The Tribune.

He said the union “hailed” the statement of the Chief Minister and did not want to indulge in making any statements against him.

“Today, we held protests inside our office premises and did not court arrest. The court arrest have been suspended for three days and will be resumed from Monday,” Mehra said.

The SRTC employees have been agitating for the past 45 days against the non-payment of salaries for the past five months.

They have also been demanding the implementation of the recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission and declare the corporation a government enterprise.

Jammu, October 9
Former Chief Minister and PDP patron Mufti Mohammed Sayeed today warned the Centre against adopting a ‘pick and choose policy’ while initiating dialogue with separatists. He warned that the process would remain inconclusive and would yield no result if any leader or group in the dialogue process was ignored.

“There should not be a pick and choose policy while initiating dialogue with separatists and no leader of any group can be ignored in the dialogue process,” the Mufti said while addressing a function of party leaders in Jammu.

“The Centre should come out with a positive attitude to initiate dialogue with Pakistan and separatists groups of Kashmir, without involving all groups process of the separatists, dialogue process would remain inconclusive and to make the talks result oriented it was imperative to involve all groups and factions,” he said.

He said meaningful and unconditional dialogue should be started with all sections of society for amicable solution to long-standing ‘Kashmir problem’. He also stressed on the need of resumption Indo-Pak dialogue at highest level to take the peace process.