Month: July 2018

Ram Madhav’s upcoming Jammu visit fuels ‘Alliance’ rumours

Editor

Amid rumours of the BJP trying to stitch an alliance with the rebel legislators of its erstwhile partner PDP, saffron party’s national general secretary Ram Madhav is reaching Jammu on a two-day tour on July 21. During his two-day stay, Madhav will interact with the party legislators besides holding organisational meetings in Jammu and Samba districts. Although the BJP leaders have termed Ram Madhav’s visit to Jammu as a routine trip for discussing organisational issues, his tour is significant amid reports of efforts being made by the party to stitch…

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UN Human Rights Chief Hits Back on Claims of Bias on Kashmir Report

Editor

Over a month after UN human rights commissioner Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein released a report which was greeted by claims of personal “prejudice” from New Delhi, his office has denied any collusion with Pakistani activists. It also said that the Kashmir report had been sourced from Indian official reports. On June 14, UN’s high commissioner for human rights released a report which mainly focused on the “human rights situation” in India’s Jammu and Kashmir from July 2016 to April 2018 based on “allegations of widespread and serious human rights violations…

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Joint Resistance Leadership urges global rights bodies to visit Kashmir prisons

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Expressing strong resentment over the extension of judicial remand for Asiya Andrabi and her two associates, the Joint Resistance Leadership comprising Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik Tuesday said all the leaders and activists booked by NIA were maltreated by jail authorities in New Delhi. The JRL has sought intervention by global rights bodies including Amnesty International, Asia Watch and ICRC and asked them to visit jails across J&K to observe prisoners’ plight. In a joint statement issued here, the JRL said, “NIA and the Enforcement…

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Hear all states on cop’s power to book Army men: J&K urges SC

Editor

At loggerheads with the Centre on the Shopian firing incident, Jammu and Kashmir on Monday requested the Supreme Court to hear all states and Union Territories (UTs) to decide whether a state police can register an FIR against an Army man without prior sanction or no. In an interim application filed in the Supreme Court, the state asserted that in terms of a 2014 Constitution Bench ruling, the police were obliged to register an FIR in incidents of cognisable nature and the Army men could not be exempted from it.…

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Government orders major reshuffle in administration

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Owais is DC Shopian, Hashmat Special Secy to Governor, Zubair Chairman JKSSB Anayatullah is FC Revenue, Razdan CEO ERA, Jeelani Director Tourism, Sarwar Director R&D Kashmir The government Monday ordered massive reshuffle in the civil administration by ordering transfers and postings of senior officers. According to an order by General Administration Department (GAD), Asgar Hassan Samoon, Principal Secretary to the Government, Animal and Sheep Husbandry Department, would also hold the charge of the post of Administrative Secretary, Transport department, in addition to his own duties, relieving Saugat Biswas, Transport Commissioner,…

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From Stones to Guns — Kashmir’s vicious cycle of violence

Editor

The road to Tral in a remote sub-district in south Kashmir crisscrosses wet rice fields and icy streams as the Himalayan Mountains arch high on the horizon. An insurgency against Indian rule has been resurrected here in recent years. On July 7, hundreds of people descended upon this picturesque and rural landscape to visit the home of the late insurgent commander Burhan Wani, who has become the area’s most well-known descendant. The second anniversary of Wani’s death on July 8 was a pressure point for regional officials, who feared thousands…

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PhD scholar Mannan Wani writes open letter, justifies move to join militancy

Editor

Mannan Wani, a PhD scholar who went missing in January and later surfaced on social media after joining the ranks of militants, has written about why he chose to join the separatist movement in Kashmir. The 26-year-old research student of Applied Geology at Aligarh Muslim University had gone missing in January only to appear on social media holding a grenade launcher. In a letter mailed to CNS, a local news agency, Monday, Wani described himself as a former PhD scholar from the AMU and currently a member of Hizbul Mujahideen.…

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Teachers detained in Baramulla for allegedly glorifying militancy

Editor

Thirteen teachers of a private school in north Kashmir’s Baramulla town were detained last week for allegedly ‘glorifying militancy’ and motivating students to become militants. Videos doing the rounds on social media showed 13–14-year-old boys being encouraged to act as militants somewhere in the forests of Zandafaran, where they had gone for a school excursion in the first week of July. As some boys played songs eulogising death, some students act as militants, ready to carry out an attack. The school management refused to talk on the matter. Chief education…

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Rebels release another group photo 2 months after last of ‘Burhan’s Boys’ killed

Editor

The new group photo came just a week after Hizbul flooded the social media with individual pictures of around 18 young men holding guns on the second death anniversary of Burhan Wani on July 8. Jammu and Kashmir police are trying to identify 14 young men in a group photograph that militants released earlier this week and which a senior police officer described a ‘leaderless troupe’. Two months after last of the active militants who posed in a famous photograph with Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani was killed militants have…

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J&K Govt likely to withdraw extra security of politicians, party workers say they are vulnerable to attacks

Editor

The Jammu and Kashmir government led by Governor Narendra Nath Vohra is likely to withdraw “extra security” of all the political leaders, including the ministers in the previous BJP-PDP coalition government. The downgrading of security comes for the first time after the BJP pulled out of the coalition government, leading to the eighth governor’s rule of state. The moves comes amidst political turmoil in the state, with more PDP leaders joining a disgruntled group of MLAs who have raised their voices against the leadership of party president Mehbooba Mufti for…

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