Category: Community

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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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,…

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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…

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Dead cop’s wife, Injured militant battling for life in same ICU

Editor

A woman who tried to save her husband—she couldn’t—from suspected militants and a militant who sustained a serious bullet injury last evening are critical at the ICU of SKIMS, Soura. Fareeda Bano’s husband Mushtaq Ahmad Sheikh, a special police officer, was killed by suspected militants at his home in Bijbehara. In her attempt to save him, 45-year-old Fareeda sustained critical injuries to her lung and spinal cord. “Her lower limbs are paralysed due to spine injury,” said a doctor attending to her. The militant, Asif Ashraf Malik, 20, who was…

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318 Children killed since 2003, most shot dead: Report

Editor

Eight children were killed due to pellet shotguns, seven were killed due to injuries by tear smoke shelling and one child reportedly died due to asphyxiation caused by Pelargonic Acid Vanillylamide (PAVA) shell, which are chilly-based munitions. Every year since 2003, at least 26 children were killed on an average in Jammu and Kashmir, either by government forces, militants, unidentified gunmen, explosions caused by littered shells or because of the shelling between Indian and Pakistani forces at the Line of Control (LOC), a report issued by the Valley’s top human…

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Resistance leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani offers prayers in Srinagar after 8 years

Editor

Tehreek-e-Hurriyat chief Ashraf Sehrai and others accompanied him to Jamia Masjid in Hyderpora Hurriyat Conference Chairperson Syed Ali Shah Geelani offered congregational prayers at the Jamia Masjid in Srinagar’s Hyderpora locality on Friday for the first time since 2010, the Kashmir News Service reported. Ashraf Sehrai, who succeeded Geelani at the helm of the Tehreek-e-Hurriyat, and other leaders of the party accompanied him. Geelani has been under house arrest for the past eight years and has not been allowed to offer Friday prayers at the mosque. Jammu and Kashmir Director…

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