Category: Community

Let’s work for a peaceful summer: Mehbooba Mufti to Police

Editor

Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti asked government forces yet again on Tuesday to strictly adhere to Standard Operating Procedure (COP) during gun battles with militants and directed top police officers to put in their best efforts for ensuring a peaceful summer ahead. The CM during a high level security review meeting at her Gupkar residence in the summer capital also directed top police officers to ensure “maximum restraint” while dealing with street protests. The beleaguered CM cut short her visit to New Delhi and rushed back to Srinagar Monday evening following…

Read More

Mass outpouring of grief and anger as mourners bury the dead

Editor

There was scarcely anyone in the village of Amshipora who had managed to sleep through the night. Songs of freedom and defiance playing on the mosque loudspeaker kept everyone up. In any case, the anguish of losing a bright young man of the village was so deep that somehow everyone felt that they must mourn with the Dars by staying close to them. AitimadHussain Dar was twenty-six-year-old with an MPhil from Hyderabad University. He was killed by the government forces with four of his comrades in a long gunfight in…

Read More

Kashmir on edge again as resistance extend strike by a day

Editor

A day after the killing of 12 militants and four civilians in security forces operations, Kashmir remained on edge and the strike called by separatists and restrictions imposed by authorities paralysed normal life in Kashmir. Tension prevailed in south, central and north Kashmir today and authorities enforced curfew-like restrictions in parts of south Kashmir and Srinagar to foil anti-India protests and prevent youth from taking to roads and indulging in stone pelting. The police, paramilitary and army men were deployed in strength in the curfew-bound areas to enforce the restrictions…

Read More

Pellet horror revisits SMHS Hospital, scores facing risk of blindness

Editor

Horror wreaked by pellet ammunition in 2016 has revisited the SMHS Hospital, where at least 41 youths who suffered pellet injuries in anti-government protests in Shopian on Sunday face imminent partial or complete blindness. In Ward No. 8, 14-year-old Murtaza Hussain writhes in pain. Both his eyes are bandaged shut. An unspecified number of metal pellets have penetrated his face and eyes. He couldn’t get a wink of sleep last night, his uncle Ghulam Ahmad said. But more than the pain, Hussain’s family is worried about the ultimate nightmare the…

Read More

Don’t expect Kashmiris to buy our narrative: Sanjiv Bhatt on Shopian Civilian killings

Editor

Raising questions over use of bullets on protestors in Kashmir, a police officer who took on Narendra Modi government over 2002 Gujarat riots, on Monday drew comparisons between crowd control measures in the Valley and rest of India. Taking to Twitter, the 1988 batch Indian Police Officer Sanjiv Bhatt wrote: “Four civilians killed when police opened fire on stone-throwing demonstrators in Kashmir”. Bhatt said that Kashmiris “cannot be expected to buy our narrative” since two different approaches are used in Kashmir and rest of India. “Lethal bullets for crowd control…

Read More

Achee Din: Petrol price hits 4 year high, Diesel at highest level

Editor

Petrol price today hit a four-year high of Rs 73.73 a litre while diesel rates touched an all-time high of Rs 64.58 in the national capital, renewing calls for the government to cut excise tax rates. State-owned oil firms, which have been since June last year revising auto fuel prices daily, today raised petrol and diesel rates by 18 paise per litre each in Delhi, according to a price notification. Petrol in the national capital now costs Rs 73.73 a litre, the highest since September 14, 2014 when rates had…

Read More

Single BJP MP from Jammu more active in Parliament than all Kashmiri MPs put together

Editor

An analysis of performance of Kashmiri MPs in the Parliament shows they were far behind their counterparts from other states in highlighting issues of the state. The review of their performance, based on key parameters like attendance, questions asked, participation in debates, shows they lagged even behind the BJP MPs from Jammu. Sample this: BJP lawmaker Jugal Kishore, who represents Jammu- Poonch parliamentary segment, has raised 217 state and constituency specific questions during the past four years. The number of queries brought into the notice of the Parliament by Kishore…

Read More

Brace for dry April and Water Scarce summer

Editor

The weather department has made a grim prediction. Like March, April would be nearly dry. By then natural springs and streams, thirsting for adequate rains since last June, would turn dry. Groundwater level, which has been depleted, won’t be recharged. “ From September last year there has been no significant precipitation like it used to be in Kashmir. There was no significant snowfall or rain this winter. When there is no snowfall in the mountains it is naturally going to affect water level in the plains. It causes both qualitative…

Read More

T-Shirts glorifying use of human shield in Kashmir spark row

Editor

Delhi BJP spokesperson Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga has sparked national controversy six months after his online shopping company Tshirtbhaiya.com started selling T-shirts glorifying the use of a human shield in Kashmir last year by an Indian Army major. The T-shirt in question has a representational image of a man tied to the front of a jeep. It’s an obvious reference to the incident when an alleged stone-pelter from central Kashmir was tied in front of an Army jeep last year. Major Nitin Leetul Gogoi, the officer who had done it,…

Read More

Portrayal of Kashmir Human shield incident in ‘Baaghi 2’ is a new low for Bollywood

Editor

In 2018, the industry still uses Pakistan-bashing and vein-popping bursts of patriotism as crutches. Tone-deaf, problematic, ignorant and insensitive are all epithets that can describe the garden variety Bollywood potboiler. Tiger Shroff’s latest “action movie” Baaghi 2 manages to tick all the boxes with just one scene. In an exceptional display of callousness, this new Sajid Nadiadwala film decided to address an issue that has continued to be contentious since April 2017, when Farooq Ahmad Dar, an innocent Kashmiri voter, was forcibly used as a human shield by Major Nitin…

Read More