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After militant raid, security up at Wular Lake project site
Finally, cash award for youth who helped detect tunnel
Transborder
Tunnel |
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Jammu-based political groups to boycott former interlocutors
PDP slams Omar’s U-turn on interlocutors’ report
Former interlocutors interact with civil society members
Efforts made to get feedback on K-report
Govt gives details of arms haul to rights panel
IntERNATIONAL
Day for Disappeared Persons
Udhampur takes lead in regularising illegal power connections
BJP wants to dispel wrong notions about party in Kashmir valley
Posts
of assistant professor
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After militant raid, security up at Wular Lake project site
Srinagar, August 30 The Centrally-funded lake conservation project, which started last year, is located close to the suspended Tulbul Navigation Lock Project, also called Wular Barrage. Pakistan is strongly opposing the construction of Wular Barrage and the state intelligence agencies believe that militants raided the site near Sopore on the directions of Pakistan as they suspected that the Wular Lake conservation project might be part of the suspended Wular Barrage project. “After the intimidation and threat to the workers and engineers, we have decided to deploy nearly two dozen men to guard the site. We will ensure the safety and security of the workers at the site,” said a police officer. Police sources said the local Army units had also been advised to increase patrolling around the site during night hours to ensure that no such incident was repeated. The government was also contemplating setting up an Army camp near the construction site. A group of three to four heavily armed militants, suspected to be from the pro-Pakistan Hizbul Mujahideen outfit, had barged into workers’ huts in Aadipore village on Monday night. They snatched mobile phones from nearly 20 workers. “The militants threatened them with dire consequences and held them hostage for two hours,” a source said. During these two hours, militants used a bulldozer to demolish an embankment which was being raised by the workers on the edge of Asia’s largest fresh water lake. Before fleeing the spot, the militants — who were speaking Kashmiri — warned the workers, most of them non-locals, of dire consequences if they continued construction at the site. The police said it had identified two local militants who had raided the site. “After this incident, many labourers fled the village and work on the construction site has been stopped,” a source said. Superintendent Engineer Zahoor Ahmed Shah said work at the site would start shortly. “After the incident, a team of engineers visited the site and I hope the work will start in two or three days,” Shah said. The militant raid and damage to the construction and machinery has come almost seven months after militants earlier raided the same site and decamped with maps and documents. The police said that in January a group of militants had targeted the temporary shelters at the project and taken away documents and maps related to the project. “At that time the workers were not intimidated,” said a police officer.
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Finally, cash award for youth who helped detect tunnel
Jammu, August 30 The same boy, on December 30 last year, had also shifted an injured border guard to safety. The border guard had been critically injured in Pakistani firing. Jammu Divisional Commissioner Pradeep Gupta along with BSF officers acknowledged Singh’s work and presented him a certificate, a memento and suitable cash awards. “This boy had reported to the BSF about the caved-in area. To acknowledge the presence of mind shown by him and at the same time to encourage other border residents, we presented him a certificate, a memento and a cash award of Rs 5,100,” said Gupta. “I will also recommend his name for a suitable award from the state government,” added the Divisional Commissioner. A senior BSF officer said the BSF had also given Singh a suitable cash award. “Since he has done a good job, the BSF has honoured him with a cash award,” said the officer. “We also asked other villagers to remain vigilant to such deeds of a hostile and unreliable neighbour in future too,” he added. On July 28, the BSF had detected a 540-metre-long transborder tunnel near the Chalyari border outpost, and on July 31 the border guarding force had lodged a written protest with the Pakisatan Rangers via the Octroi border outpost. Following the detection of the tunnel, the Rangers had started violating the truce deal along the international border. The last violation occurred on August 20 in the Sidarwan area of the Pargwal sector, where the BSF had shot dead a Pakistani intruder. |
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Transborder
Tunnel
Jammu, August 30 “Despite objections raised by the Pakistan Rangers, we have dug up the tunnel some 50 metres on the other side of the barbed fence,” said the BSF DIG, NS Jamwal. “After an earthmover was pressed into service on the other side of the fence, the Rangers had started raising objections but we explained to them about the nature of work and it is on,” said Jamwal. However, there has been no fresh firing by them, he added. “Though some semblance of peace has returned along the international border and there has been no truce violation or hostile fire from Pakistan along the border since August 20, we can’t take it for granted,” said the officer. The BSF is fully alert to the situation all along the border, he added. Sources in the BSF said the border guarding force had decided to go up to the Zero Line to trace the exact origin of the tunnel. The BSF had hit the tunnel’s dead end on this side of the fence. On August 25, Union Home Secretary RK Singh had visited the RS Pura sector to take stock of the situation. |
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Jammu-based political groups to boycott former interlocutors
Jammu-based political groups have alleged that instead of incorporating wishes and aspirations of the Jammu region in their final report, the interlocutors have tried to appease Kashmir-centric mainstream parties as well as separatist groups. Three interlocutors Dilip Padgaonkar, Radha Kumar and M M Ansari, appointed by the Union Government on October 13, 2010, had submitted their 176-page report to the then Union Home Minister P Chidambaram on October 12, 2011, which was made public on May 24 this year. Padgaonkar and Radha Kumar had yesterday announced their plan to interact with a cross-section of people in Jammu to get a feedback on their report. “There is no reason to hold any meeting with the former interlocutors because they have already submitted a biased and lopsided report,” said Shamsher Singh Manhas, state president of the BJP. He said that BJP had already rejected the recommendations of the interlocutors and so the party would not give importance to any future exercise by them. Former Education Minister and working chairman of National Panthers Party (NPP) Harsh Dev Singh said the interlocutors had not only shown disrespect and disregard for the sentiments and aspirations of the Jammu people but had also made certain unsavoury and offensive remarks which were not in tune with the national mood. “The interlocutors have created controversies and an atmosphere of suspicion and mistrust by using words like ‘disputed’ for Kashmir, entertaining proposals for ‘azadi’ mooted by certain quarters and describing Pakistan-occupied Kashmir as Pakistan-administered Kashmir,” he said. Singh, chairing a meeting of the NPP this morning, announced that they had decided to boycott the former interlocutors who were on a visit to the state for one week to elicit public response after the submission of the J-K report to the Home Ministry. He said the interlocutors had summarily dismissed the various propositions mooted by the NPP and other Jammu-based political and social organisations and thereby treated the issues of the Jammu people with contempt and scorn. “As the report has already been finalised and presented to the Union Government, the interlocutors’ role is over and their present visit and further proposed meetings with political parties are devoid of any meaning,” he observed. The lone MLA of the Jammu State Morcha (JSM), Ashwani Kumar Sharma, has also announced the party’s decision to boycott the interlocutors. “Since we have already boycotted the interlocutors, there is no question of meeting them in future,” Sharma said. “We are holding a meeting of our office-bearers to take a final decision regarding meeting or boycotting the interlocutors,” said president of the Chamber of Commerce and Industries, Jammu, YV Sharma. |
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PDP slams Omar’s U-turn on interlocutors’ report
Srinagar, August 30 “We sincerely advise Omar Abdullah to go through his own statements before contradicting them so that the institution of Chief Minister is spared the public ridicule invited as a result of his non-stop U-turns,” party general secretary Mohammad Dilawar Mir said in a statement here today. He said there was a degree of sanctity attached to the Chief Ministerial chair which Omar was compromising through his non-serious observations that contradict him more than representing a policy of his government on issues of public importance. Referring to the latest statement of the Chief Minister on the interlocutors, Mir said it was the classic case of a political executive getting lost in a ‘blunder land’ of his own making. He said it was obvious that the Chief Minister did not mean anything that he ever said for or against the interlocutors and seemed to be just shooting in the dark for gaining some relevance on the political landscape. “But in the process, the institutions are becoming a laughing stock,” Mir regretted. The Chief Minister has described the interlocutor’s report “as one of the most exhaustive exercises in the last two decades” and something that could be “the basis for Center-state dialogue” just a day after dismissing the former interlocutors as “virtual nobodies”. The PDP leader said it was easy to guess the reasons for such a brazen reversal of his position even as his National Conference described the exercise as futile on the same day. Mir said Omar’s remarks on AFSPA have also become a source of embarrassment for the entire state as he keeps setting new deadlines day in and day out. "It is increasingly becoming clear that Jammu and Kashmir is not in safe hands and given the Chief Minister’s habit of changing his statements so unabashedly the disastrous performance of his government becomes understandable," Mir alleged. |
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Former interlocutors interact with civil society members
Srinagar, August 30 The deliberations were held as part of the interlocutors’ efforts to get feedback on the implementation of the recommendations made in their report on Jammu and Kashmir, which was submitted to the Centre in October 2011. The report was made public in May this year and has drawn a mixed response from various sections of society and political circles in and outside the state. The three-member team of interlocutors was constituted in the wake of the summer unrest in 2010. Thorough discussions were held between the interlocutors and the members of the civil society in the light of the recommendations made by the team and the implementation of these recommendations by the state and Central governments. Most of the civil society members, who took part in the discussions with the interlocutors, expressed their unhappiness over the role of such exercises towards a congenial atmosphere and the political situation prevailing in the state. Langate MLA Sheikh Abdul Rashid and former senior bureaucrat Mohammad Shafi Pandit participated in the discussions. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has said the interlocutors report had been formulated after consultation with various groups across the state and discussion with various shades of opinion to make it one of the most exhaustive exercise of its kind in the last two decades. An official spokesman here last night said Omar had said such a report would necessarily evoke divergent views and reactions among the people, who may argue differently, but an effort needed to be made to narrow down the differences and unify people on the broader contours of the political resolution. The Chief Minister said the report should form the basis for initiating a dialogue between the Centre and the state. He said it should pave the way for meeting the aspirations of the people of the state on the basis of a boarder consensus that emerges from the internal dialogue. The two interlocutors met Governor NN Vohra and Chief Minister Omar Abdullah here yesterday. After their day-long interactive programme, the two interlocutors would proceed to Jammu tomorrow to hold similar interactions with the members of a cross-section of society on Sunday. |
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Efforts made to get feedback on K-report
Srinagar, August 30 The deliberations were held as part of the interlocutors’ efforts to get feedback on the implementation of the recommendations made in their report on Jammu and Kashmir, which was submitted to the Centre in October 2011. The report was made public in May this year and has drawn a mixed response from various sections of society and political circles in and outside the state. The three-member team of interlocutors was constituted in the wake of the summer unrest in 2010. Thorough discussions were held between the interlocutors and members of the civil society in the light of the recommendations made by the team and the implementation of these recommendations by the state and Central governments. Most of the civil society members, who took part in the discussions with the interlocutors, expressed their unhappiness over the role of such exercises towards a congenial atmosphere and the political situation prevailing in the state. Langate MLA Sheikh Abdul Rashid and former senior bureaucrat Mohammad Shafi Pandit participated in the discussions. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has said the interlocutors report had been formulated after consultation with various groups across the state and discussion with various shades of opinion to make it one of the most exhaustive exercise of its kind in the last two decades.
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Govt gives details of arms haul to rights panel
Srinagar, August 30 The figures were revealed by the government in its 27 page action taken report (ATR) submitted to the State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) on the unmarked graves in three districts of north Kashmir on August 13. “The arms and ammunition recovered till date from militants is reflected in the statement,” the government said in the ATR. Giving description of the arms and ammunition seized and recovered from militants by the security forces from 1990 till July 31, 2012, the state Home Department’s statement furnished along with the ATR says 30,752 AK-47, AK-56 and AK-74 rifles had been seized so far. The figure also includes 11,431 revolvers, pistols, 2,830 rocket boosters, 219 light machine guns and SLRs, 295 303-rifles and 391 Sniper rifles. The government claims to have recovered and seized 70,071 AK-47, AK-56 and AK-74 magazines, 11,055 pistols and revolver magazines. The security forces have seized 39.39 lakh bullets of AK rifles, 2,20,604 rounds of pistol and revolver ammunition. The government also claims to have recovered 12,938 kg of RDX from the possession of militants during anti-militancy operations and raids during the last 22 years. The other type of explosive substances recovered or seized weighs about 32,072.75 kg, 6,071 IEDs, 63,335 hand grenades and 61,689 detonators have been recovered from militants across the state. The government further added in the ATR: “The recovery of such a big haul of weapons, ammunition from terrorists substantiates that the state has been fighting almost a full-scale war waged by the terrorists at the behest of their motivators and mentors from across the border.” |
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IntERNATIONAL
Day for Disappeared Persons
Srinagar, August 30 This was in response to a statement made by Chief Minister Omar Abdullah recently that families of disappeared persons should provide the government a clue about which way to go. On the eve of International Day for Disappeared Persons, the families of disappeared persons today staged a silent sit-in protest at Pratap Park, Srinagar, and paid tributes to their loved ones, who were subjected to enforced disappearances. “Haven’t we been providing them a clue for the last 20 years? We have eyewitness accounts which say at some point or the other that the security forces were involved in these cases. A majority of these cases have the involvement of the security forces, which arrested or picked up the youths during crackdowns. Isn’t that enough for a clue,” asked an emotional Parveena. Some volunteers of the APDP, however, let their brushes do the talking by showing loneliness, grief and despair of victims of these disappearances in their paintings. Three women, who were today present at the sit-in protest, have never missed any sit-in programme of the APDP for the last many years. The women say the wait for their sons has not ended and they will not stop protesting. “My son Muhammad Hussain Ashraf was just 20 when he was arrested by the security forces from the Rainawari area of Srinagar. One of my daughters is suffering from severe psychological stress due to the family trauma,” says Khadeeja, who is still coping with the health problems she and her family suffered due to the disappearance of her only son. Zooni, an elderly woman, narrates how she was duped. She says someone had promised to get back her son by paying him Rs 8 lakh. “I somehow managed the money and paid him, hoping that I would get back my son. But the person turned out to be a cheat. I feel suffocated at home so I come here once a while to share my grief with others,” says Zooni. The APDP members later proceeded to Narbal on the Srinagar-Baramulla highway to erect a memorial dedicated to their missing family members. |
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Udhampur takes lead in regularising illegal power connections
Jammu, August 30 “As par the latest Census, about 17,000 power connections are without meters in the entire Udhampur district. 4,000 connections have been regularised and we have set a target of regularising 10,000 illegal connections by the October end,” Deputy Commissioner, Udhampur, PK Pole told The Tribune. He exuded confidence that all illegal power connections would be regularised in a phased manner. As the power sector has seen an all time high revenue loss of over Rs 2,000 crore this year, the authorities have decided to press policemen into service to regularise illegal power connections in the state. Officials of the Power Development Department (PDD) are finding it difficult to accomplish the task of regularising illegal connections to achieve the target of revenue collection. Besides assisting the PDD officials to accomplish their task, the authorities have given powers to the police to gather information on their own regarding illegal power connections and take action against culprits under the criminal laws. The Udhampur Deputy Commissioner said the role of the police was not only confined to assisting the PDD officials. “The police on its own will gather information regarding illegal power connections and take action against culprits under the criminal laws,” Pole said and added that some persons were booked by the police in this connection this year. Official figures say there were 12,77,369 registered consumers with the PDD in 2010-11. The department has installed only 5,09,685 electronic meters, leaving over 7.5 lakh consumers to use power without meters. The installation of electronic meters in the state was started in 2004-05. About 24,052 meters were installed in the first year and 5.09 lakh meters have been installed so far. A meeting of senior civil and police officers was held at Udhampur two days ago to chalk out a strategy for checking power pilferage and review revenue realisation on account of the power supply in the district. During the meeting, the Deputy Commissioner called for month-wise monitoring of revenue realisation and said strict action would be initiated against consumers for using power illegally and employees for their indulgence in the matter. |
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BJP wants to dispel wrong notions about party in Kashmir valley
Srinagar, August 30 “We held training camps in three Parliamentary constituencies of Baramulla, Ganderbal and Anantnag over the past two days, as we want to build brotherhood and shed the alleged communal and anti-Muslim image of our party that has been created by the National Conference and the Congress. We want to get close to people and dispel wrong notions about us,” said Jain, who is co-in charge of the J&K affairs of the party, while addressing mediapersons here. Claiming that the BJP had set an “exemplary precedent” through its “good governance” in BJP-governed states in the county, Jain demanded Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s resignation. He alleged that the state government was “only involved in scams”. “From here to New Delhi, you will find a long list of scams, be it the Jammu and Kashmir Cricket Association scam or the recent coalgate scam,” he said. Asserting that a fair probe into the coalgate scam was impossible till Prime Minister Manmohan Singh tendered his resignation, Jain said the BJP had planned to hold a series of protests and press conferences for three days from tomorrow across the country against rampant corruption. He said the party would protest from “sadak to sansad” (roads to Parliament). He also defended the frequent disruptions of the Parliament sessions by the party, saying it was “necessary in the interests of the common man”. Regarding the expulsion of six BJP MLAs for cross-voting, he said, “The Speaker has unnecessarily created confusion over the matter. The party high command has already announced their ouster. Chaman Lal Gupta is no longer associated with the party and Jugal Kishore is the legislature party leader.” |
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Posts
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Jammu, August 30 Describing it as an “another attempt to give preferential treatment” to the Kashmir region over Jammu, the groups have asked the government to rectify the Cabinet decision, besides overhaul the selection criteria. “We oppose the regional discrimination that has been institutionalised by creating flaws in the selection criteria so that large number of candidates from Kashmir get selected, depriving candidates from Jammu of their rights. We demand overhauling of the selection criteria to bring transparency in the process,” said BJP chief spokesperson Jitendra Singh. Mahesh Koul, president of the Sangarsh, an organisation of students and scholars, said less number of posts were allotted to Jammu despite having bigger land area and population density, besides being the prime tax and revenue generator. “The decision is unfortunate and reflects the government’s obsession with Kashmir. The comprehensive solution to end discrimination with Jammu is the political reorganisation of the state,” said Koul. The state government has created 1,129 posts of assistant professor, including 700 vacancies for the Kashmir region and 429 for Jammu under the order number 317-HE-12 dated 3-08-2012. National Panthers Party working chairman Harsh Dev Singh said, “Despite Jammu having equal number of degree colleges as compared to Kashmir, the government discriminated against the educated Jammu youth and sanctioned less posts thereby depriving them of their rights. No norm was followed while sanctioning the posts. The silence of Jammu-based ministers has exposed their claims.” Singh said the government should revisit its order. “It is not only the matter of employment. It will jeopardise the future of thousands of students.” Ashish Jamwal, a University of Jammu scholar, said, “The government should explain why the Jammu youth are being victimised. If the government has to fill the vacancies in such a discriminate way, then the students and scholars should leave their studies and look for some other alternative.”
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conservation project site is yet to resume after militant threats, the J&K Police has decided to deploy nearly 25 of its men to guard the site at Aadipore village near Sopore town in north Kashmir.
Jammu, August 30
Jammu, August 30