Category: Community

Govt asks Gulmarg hoteliers to cancel tourist bookings to accommodate Khelo India Crew

Editor

In a bizarre move, the administration has directed the hoteliers at Gulmarg to cancel all the pre-bookings done for February 25 to March 2, 2021, to accommodate VVIPs, VIPs, athletes and media persons for second Khelo India national winter games. The directive has come at a time when hotels at Gulmarg were pre-booked till mid-March owing to the huge rush of the travellers to Kashmir over the past few months. An order to this effect has been issued today from the office of the District Commissioner Baramulla asking the sub-divisional…

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Father demanding son’s body charged under anti-terror law in Kashmir

Editor

Police charge seven people, including father of teenager killed by government forces, under the stringent UAPA law. The family members of a teenage boy in Indian-administered Kashmir, killed in an alleged gunfight, have been charged under an stringent anti-terror law for holding a demonstration in the village “demanding the return of his body”. Ather Mushtaq, 16, from Bellow village in Pulwama, was among three men killed by Indian security forces on December 30 last year during what police described as a gunfight after the men refused to surrender on the…

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Kashmir’s New Bureaucracy; Fewer locals, more officers from outside

Editor

Kashmir was on the boil in August 2008. Protests had erupted over the transfer of 99 acres of forest land to the Amarnath Shrine Board, which managed a popular Hindu pilgrimage site in the Valley. In response, groups in Jammu had blocked the highway to Kashmir, choking off supplies to the region. To protest the economic blockade, on August 11, over two lakh people marched through North Kashmir’s Baramulla district towards the Line of Control with Pakistan. The security forces opened fire on them, killing five protesters, including a leader…

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Harissa, Kangri, and Pheran; This is winter in Kashmir

Editor

At 7.30 am on a snowy December day, Peer Murtaza and two friends join the crowd at Dilshad Restaurant to relish a plate of harisa, a traditional Kashmiri winter breakfast dish. Most tables are taken but the trio find some space, squeeze in and order three plates of the thick meat stew. Kashmir’s long chill stretches from the onset of autumn in September all the way to April, and at their lowest, temperatures can dip to minus 4 degrees Celsius. Every morning during these months, the Dilshad Restaurant — a…

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‘Pheran’ the traditional gown with new designs in great demand during winters in Kashmir

Editor

With newer designs, ‘Pheran’, the traditional knee-length robe that is part of the unique identity of Kashmiri culture continues to be in great demand, especially during bone-chilling winters. Despite the availability of many modern and stylish clothes in the market, these pherans are most in demand during the 40 day period ‘Chillai Kalan’, which is known to be the coldest period of Kashmir winter. Kashmiris have been using woolen fabric to stitch up pherans but newer designs using Chinese and Korean fabrics are available in local markets especially in Srinagar.…

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Gaw Kadal Massacre: 21 Jan 1990, Kashmir’s Doomsday

Editor

On 21 January 1990, Gulle Kak was returning home after delivering newspapers in the vicinity when CRPF troops deployed on Gaw Kadal (bridge) stopped him to move further. Unaware of what was to unfold, Kak took a detour to reach his family. “I parked my bicycle outside my house and started walking towards the bridge. I saw a large procession coming towards the bridge from the civil area side. As the protesters reached the bridge, the CRPF troops opened fire on the procession,” Kak said. “Before I could understand what…

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Empty grave waiting for the body of the teenager killed by Indian forces

Editor

Since 2020, Indian authorities began burying suspected rebels in unmarked graves, denying families proper funerals and adding to anti-India anger. On a recent chilly winter day in Indian-administered Kashmir, Mushtaq Ahmed Wani shovelled the earth, laboriously digging a grave for his teenage son. There was, however, no body to be lowered inside. Stunned, a group of onlookers watched in silence. But Ahmed kept digging, now knee-deep inside the half-dug grave. Then he rose, straightening his back, and faced the crowd, enraged. “I want my son’s body,” he howled. “I ask…

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Valley Vignette: For the love of Wazwan

Editor

Wazwan is a cuisine denoting cultural pride of Kashmir, which people proudly identify with Last week, Bollywood director Vivek Agnihotri, who was in Kashmir for the shooting of his film, took to micro-blogging site Twitter “to bring about a change” in a traditional Kashmiri cuisine “Wazwan” from non-vegetarian to vegetarian food. “Nobody knows how to make a vegetarian Wazwan in Kashmir. But I am here to bring about change. #TheKashmirFiles.(sic),” Aghnihotri tweeted while sharing a picture of having a vegetarian thali at a Srinagar hotel with a lookalike “mutton kebab”…

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Bird Flu scare stopping masses from buying poultry across the Valley

Editor

After the COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on the poultry industry in Jammu and Kashmir, the industry is now reeling under the threat of the bird flu infection. People associated with the industry said that despite banning the entry of any poultry product into Jammu and Kashmir not a single case has been reported here, while most people have left consumption of chicken and other poultry products. Bano Pratap, owner of Prem poultry in Jammu city told a local news agency, Kashmir News Observer (KNO) that the unrest created by the…

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Collapsing of bridge retaining wall at Ramban forces highway closer

Editor

Authorities today evening suspended movement of heavy vehicles on the Jammu-Srinagar national highway after a portion of the road caved in near a construction site at Kelamorh, Ramban. Sources said the portion of the road that caved in, falls between Ramban-Ramsu stretch where tunnelling work is going on. Meanwhile, hundreds of vehicles have got stranded at various places along the highway. Officials concerned while taking to Kashmir Post said that it will take some time to restore the traffic. “We have pressed our men and machinery into service to do…

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