Srinagar, April 11
In a humane gesture, the police in Baramulla today protected a newborn baby and his mother from stone-pelters and escorted them to safety while helping the family cross a barricaded bridge in the town, where a group of stone-pelters has enforced a shutdown over the last two days.

The group, calling itself “Nawjawan-e-Millat”, has issued an ultimatum to the local authorities and has been demanding removal of CRPF and Army camps from the town.

The group has enforced a shutdown in the town, even though an alliance of separatist groups, Muttahida Majlishe Mushawarat, has curtailed its protest calendar and called for “no shutdown” this week.

Even as shops and other business establishments remained closed for the second day today in the town, the police had to escort a newborn baby and his mother amid heavy stone-pelting on Baramulla cement bridge, an important connecting link between the old Baramulla town and the Civil Lines area and an important thoroughfare.

“A mother and her newborn child were discharged from District Hospital Baramulla today. The family had to cross over the bridge to their home. However, they could not cross due to heavy stone-pelting on the bridge,” a police spokesman said.

“The stone-pelters did not heed the pleas of the parents and the police. The continuous pelting posed a security threat to the child. The police then formed a protective shield ring around the newborn baby and his parents and provided them safe passage on their way home along the bridge,” he said.

Out of 1,146 primary/ upper primary schools, 579 schools have been accommodated in rented buildings lacking basic facilities. Out of 712 primary schools, 241 schools have toilet facility (34 per cent).... electricity is available in 58 schools (eight per cent)
— Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report

Stating that the condition of many schools was poor as 207 buildings were partially pucca or fully kuchcha, the report said only 92 out of 232 primary school buildings, 28 out of 54 upper primary school buildings and 140 out of 414 additional classrooms had been completed despite availability of funds, “indicating non-serious approach” on the part of the authorities concerned.

Anantnag, April 11
Tightening the noose around those violating norms when it comes to transport facilities in private schools, the traffic police in Anantnag has so far seized four buses while at least 70 others have been challaned for violating norms.

The steps are being taken to ensure safety of the schoolchildren in the wake of the Kandiwara road accident which claimed lives of nine schoolchildren.

Reports said the buses were impounded and challaned for carrying students beyond the seating capacity of the vehicles.

“Some of the drivers did not have proper documents and in some cases, the drivers were found without a driving licence,” a traffic official said.

District Traffic Inspector (DTI) Farooq Ahmad said 14 buses belonging to Radiant Public School in Anantnag were challaned for over-loading.

“A school bus of Al Sarwat Convent High School was carrying 40 children against its capacity of 20,” the official said.

He said while one of the buses of Radiant had a seating capacity of 29, it was carrying 57 students. Likewise, the other buses were carrying 53, 60 and 61 students against the capacity of 29, 36 and 31 respectively.

The challans are being issued across Anantnag district including in Bijbehara, Kokernag, Achabal, Dialgam besides in Anantnag town.

The DTI Anantnag, Farooq Ahmad, said more stringent measures will be taken by his department in the coming days.

“We have launched a drive against the school buses violating the norms and this will continue,” said the DTI. “We want to make sure our children are safe,” he added.

He said the traffic police department is making sure the school buses do not carry students beyond their seating capacities; moreover, they should have proper arrangement for students to keep their belongings.

“Most of these school buses do not have proper registration papers and drivers are often found to be without a driving licence,” said the DTI.

“We will continue this drive unless the schools mend their ways,” he stated.

Handwara, April 11
Shortage of teaching staff has severely affected education of about more than 200 students at Girls High School (GHS) Kalamabad in Handwara tehsil of Kupwara district. Against seven sanctioned posts of teachers, only three teachers are available in the schools.

Students said due to non-availability of Science, Social Science and Mathematics teachers in the school, they often miss classes in these subjects.

“Most of the times, we miss classes in Science, Social Science and Mathematics as teachers for the said subjects are not available in the school. We will fail to complete the syllabus in these subjects if the teachers are not made available,” said Sameena Akther, a 10th grader.

School management said the teaching staff was forced to pitch in with extra work due to shortage of teachers in a few important subjects. “The teachers are forced to teach subjects including Mathematics and Science on rotational basis, but such an arrangement still fails to address the problems of students. There is an urgent need to post four teachers to save students from academic loss,” said Zahida Akther, headmistress of the high school.

Students from far-off places in Handwara are enrolled in the school.

Some other students said they were forced to take tuitions in Mathematics and Science to cover the syllabus.

“In order to cover the syllabus before commencement of the examination in October, we are going for private tuitions. The school is without teachers and the authorities seem in no mood to address this serious problem,” said Haseena Rashid, a class X student.

Parents also voiced concerns over shortage of staff and demanded that the required staff be posted at the earliest. “By ignoring staff deficiency, the authorities are playing with the careers of students. We appeal to the education minister to personally intervene in the matter and post the required number of teachers in the school,” said Abdul Ahad, a parent.

Srinagar, April 11
The All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) has expressed its concern over supply of spurious drugs and medicine to the Valley’s hospitals, particularly GB Pant Children’s Hospital in Srinagar, saying this has exposed the government machinery.

On April 10, the J&K State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) had issued notices to the state government, asking it to submit details regarding the alleged supply of spurious and expired drugs to GB Pant Hospital, which had resulted in deaths of infants in the hospital last year.

“Supply of spurious drugs to the Valley’s hospitals is a deliberate effort on the part of the government to put the lives of patients at great peril,” a Hurriyat spokesman said here in a statement. The spokesman said the representatives of the government in the department of health had shown an extremely “irresponsible attitude” towards the health care of patients.

“The health department has been turned into a house of corruption by the authorities. The government has failed at every level to provide basic day-to-day necessities to the people of Jammu and Kashmir, where corruption and misappropriation have seeped into government departments, rendering them defunct when it comes to discharging their duties,” the Hurriyat has said in its statement. The spokesman said the services of department of health towards patient health care and providing genuine drugs to hospitals has always remained “questionable”. He said the recent expose about the deaths of hundreds of children at the lone children’s hospital due to spurious drugs and ill-treatment amply demonstrates the wretched condition of this department. The spokesman said the way free licences have been issued to fake drug companies to provide bogus medicines to hospitals is a cause of concern. — TNS

Anantnag, April 11
The lack of a proper sewage treatment plant or a garbage dumping site in the Anantnag district of south Kashmir is taking a severe toll on the environment and health of residents in the area.

Reports said that the municipal authorities, after letting the garbage rot on the roadsides for days, dump it on the outskirts of the town without any proper treatment.

Residents say irregular clearance of garbage in the towns in the district was a major cause of the spread of diseases in the area.

“Not only is it affecting the health of the residents but the foul smell emanating from the garbage is also unbearable and concerns both the residents of the area and the people passing by,” said Muhammad Amin, a resident of the Bakhshiabad area of Anantnag town.

He said there were no garbage bins in the town due to which garbage was left at roadsides for days together till the authorities sent a dumping van.

Residents of areas adjoining Anantnag town say garbage from Anantnag town was at least being picked up even if it was irregular and dumped into trenches on the outskirts of the town. “In our town garbage is left to rot just outside the town limits, under open sky, causing severe inconvenience to people living nearby,” said a resident of Bijbehara town.

The authorities, however, maintain that the problem is going to be taken care of very soon. “We will be shortly getting dust bins for the town and as far as the clearance of garbage is concerned, we are doing it at a very frequent basis,” claimed Bashir Ahmad Nanda, chief executive officer, Municipal Council, Anantnag.

The director of the Urban Local Bodies, Shamim Ahmad, said proper dumping sites had been identified across the district and the problem would not persist for long. 

Srinagar, April 11
The High Court has reserved its final orders into a petition filed by hardline Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani in 2011, wherein the separatist leaders had challenged the seizure of calendars and diaries by the J&K Police, which had been published by conglomerate’s constituent body Tehreek-e-Hurriyat Kashmir.

Geelani in his petition had also appealed for quashing of the FIR registered against Tehreek-e-Hurriyat Kashmir (TeH)activists in the matter.

The calendars and diaries, published for the year 2012, were meant for public distribution by the Tehree-e-Hurriyat, which is headed by Geelani.

The organisation was floated by Geelani after he had parted his ways from the Jamaat-e-Islami Kashmir a few years ago.

In the petition, filed through senior high court lawyer and former Kashmir Bar Association president Mian Abdul Qayoom, it had been stated that the publication of calendars and diaries by the Tehreek-e-Hurriyat did not attract any offences under the Unlawful Activities Act as there was nothing in the calendars and the diaries which was aimed at spreading hatred.

Subsequently, on December 26, 2011, the Jammu and Kashmir High Court had issued notices to the state authorities, including the then Minister of State (MoS) for Home Nasir Aslam Wani and other official respondents in the petition filed by Geelani. Since then the petition was pending before the court.

“The petition was listed before a single Bench of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court on Wednesday. After hearing all the sides, the high court has now reserved the petition for final orders,” a counsel said.

On December 13, 2011, while addressing a press conference over the issue, Geelani had threatened to drag the then MoS for Home Nasir Aslam Wani, then Director General of Police, then Kashmir IGP and other senior police officials to court for seizing copies of calendars and diaries published by the TeH.

Geelani had also said police had raided various book stalls and at least seven news agencies across the Valley and seized the calendars and dairies, adding that the police had also conducted raids on the agency which published TeH’s calendar and diaries and had seized thousands of copies.

Claiming that 10,000 copies of calendar and diaries had been seized by the police, Geelani had said the calendars had only Islamic teachings inscribed on it.

While arguing the matter before the Jammu and Kashmir High Court, Geelani’s lawyers had submitted that the calendars and diaries of the TeH seized by the police do not contain anything aimed at spreading hatred.

While showing a copy of the calendar, the counsels had also submitted that the calendars only contained verses of the Quran.

However, government lawyers in their subsequent arguments had opposed these submissions.

They had argued before the court that the contents of the FIR registered at the Islamabad police station in this regard had revealed that the calendars and diaries contained objectionable material, which had the potential to hit at the integrity and sovereignty of the state. 

Srinagar, April 11
Hurriyat leader and head of religious body Muthaida Majlis-e-Ulema (joint committee of scholars) Mirwaz Umar Farooq has said he would soon call a meeting of prominent religious scholars of the Valley to address the issue of conversions.

He was reacting on the Shivpora incident on Wednesday where people had protested against a group of people alleging that they were involved in forcible conversions.

“The head of Muthaida Majlis-e-Ulema, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, has expressed serious concern over the mysterious activities of the Christian missionaries involving conversion of Kashmiri people in lieu of money and other privileges, ” a statement from Mirwaiz stated.

“Mirwaiz said Kashmiris from past many decades were engaged in the freedom movement for which they had rendered innumerable sacrifices, adding people had always maintained the age old tradition of communal harmony and had never allowed anybody to harm it” the statement read.

“He, however, said it was highly unfortunate that taking advantage of abnormal situation prevailing in Kashmir, many external powers were hell bent on changing the dominant Muslim character of Jammu and Kashmir. He said such forces were making concerted efforts to convert young students and people with less know-how about basic Muslim teachings. Mirwaiz said they were offering innocent Kashmiris money or other luxurious things or extending them grants in a bid to convert them,” the statement read.

Mirwaiz in his statement said as the head of the Muthaida Majlis-e-Ulema, he would soon convene a meeting during which representatives of Islamic organisations would be invited to discuss the issue.

Srinagar, April 11
Tens of hundreds of students studying various Distance learning courses at major study centres in Srinagar under Indira Gandhi National Open University Programme (IGNOU) are crying foul over mismanagement of various IGNOU coordinators.

The students allege that the IGNOU coordinators at various designated colleges as Amar Singh College, Srinagar , SP College, Srinagar and Govt College for Women, Srinagar who are basically the faculty members at these colleges do not regularly conduct classes on Sundays.

Moreover, there is absolutely no assistance available to the students undertaking IGNOU courses at these study centres from the select college staff and the coordinators in helping the former with their assignments and dissertations.

Students who study in these study centers hail from the remotest places of the valley and in the view of non-conduct of classes on Sunday (the only day in a week when the classes should be held according to IGNOU norms) they are left disappointed since that also leading to poor preparation for the annual exams.