Category: Community

Weddings in Kashmir goes COVID style

Editor

With the Covid-19 refusing to fade away, weddings in the Valley have become a small affair while adopting new social-distancing norms to prevent the virus from spreading. On Wednesday, a picture of a wedding with all people accompanying the groom given a separate sanitizer on a plate with food went viral on social media. “The dates of the weddings were fixed months before,” says Shazia Rafiq, whose wedding took place last week. “So, people with permission from authorities are going ahead with it. My wedding was scheduled a week ago…

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Razing properties by the state forces during encounters a new collective punishment for Kashmiri’s

Editor

Nearly two dozen houses were reduced to rubble in recent encounters, a part of counter-insurgency. The state must answer if support for militancy has dwindled due to this coercive calculus. By -Basharat Shameem Kashmir, the destruction of houses and other properties by the state forces during encounters with militants—who are always vastly outnumbered—is a common act. But this unjust policy hardly ever makes news. During these encounters, numerous people are often left homeless and their earnings over a lifetime, along with their sources of living, are smashed to smithereens. The acts…

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Locals collect Rs 3 Crore in 7 Days to rebuild houses damaged in Nawa Kadal Encounter

Editor

Junaid Kathju Bashir Ahmad Darzi, a daily wager, had lost all hope. On May 19, his two-story house in a densely populated area in downtown Srinagar had been severely damaged after an encounter.  Two Hizbul Mujahideen militants, one of whom was Junaid Ashraf Khan ‘Sehrai’, whose father is the chairman of the separatist conglomerate Tehreek-e-Hurriyat (a part of the composite All Parties Hurriyat Conference), were killed on the morning of May 19 after a 15-hour-long gun battle with security forces. For Darzi, the encounter had meant an expensive reconstruction effort.…

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Amid pandemic woes Kashmir’s big fat wedding to become lean

Editor

The new norms restrict the number of guests between 30 and 50 As the season of big fat wedding season sets in Kashmir, the pandemic and the new norms have cut its size and dulled down the traditional flavor. The new norms, which have been set in place, restrict the number of guests between 30 and 50— depending on the threat perception based zones. Deputy Commissioner of Srinagar, Shahid Chaudhary, said that the wedding ceremonies would require prior permission and social-distancing would be mandatory. “Thirty to fifty guests would be…

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Kashmir completes 300 days of lockdown amid military siege

Editor

In Kashmir, the inhumane lockdown imposed by RSS-backed Narendra Modi-led fascist government on August 05, last year, when it revoked the special status of the territory, has completed 300 days. An analytical report prepared, today, by Senior Editor of Kashmir Media Service, Muhammad Raza Malik, on the completion of 300 days of unrelenting military siege and lockdown in the occupied territory, revealed that Indian troops martyred 134 Kashmiris including 4 women during the period. It said that at least 1,299 people were critically injured due to the use of brute…

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KSCAN writes letter to UN Security Council for immediate intervention to prevent forced demographic change in J&K

Editor

Open letter to the UN Secretary General, the UN Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect and the UN Security Council: Requesting an immediate intervention to prevent forced demographic change in Jammu and Kashmir May 23, 2020 To: His Excellency, António Guterres, Secretary-General, United Nations His Excellency, Adama Dieng, Special Adviser of the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide, United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect Her Excellency, Karen Smith, Special Adviser of the Secretary-General on the Responsibility to Protect, United Nations Office on Genocide…

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India is using the pandemic to intensify its crackdown in Kashmir

Editor

As the world remains consumed with containing the coronavirus pandemic and the severe economic fallout, India has spotted an opportunity for another round of repression against the population of Kashmir, which had already been reeling from the harsh aftereffects of last year’s six-month-long military lockdown. By initiating gunfights with guerrilla fighters, jailing people for going to buy food and medicine, bringing charges against journalists, and beating doctors, paramedics and municipal workers, India is tightening its grip on Kashmir, seizing on pandemic measures to prevent a surge of resistance to its…

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Imagine the Indian lockdown without the internet and phones, Now think Kashmir

Editor

At 8 pm local time, on March 24, prime minister Narendra Modi gave 1.3 billion Indians a four-hour notice to confine themselves to their homes for the next 21 days. The national health emergency, to contain the spread of the coronavirus, suddenly plunged the country into uncharted waters, with most people having no experience in navigating them. In these dark times, one place that most Indians can look up to for guidance is Kashmir, with its three decades of experience with such crises. In the restive northern region, drawn closures…

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#VIPCulture: VIP Passengers walk out of Srinagar Airport without Covid-19 Screening

Editor

Two Kashmiri students returning from Bangladesh walked out of the Srinagar International Airport on Thursday morning without undergoing the mandatory screening for the Covid-19 infection, courtesy their ‘influential parents’. According to reports, two female MBBS students enrolled at Dhaka Medical College arrived with 30 other students at the Srinagar International Airport in an early morning Indigo flight from Kolkata. All the students were kept at the arrival lounge with 250 other travelers who had flown in from different parts of the country. “While we were speculating administration’s next move, an…

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