Category: Community

Pilgrims upset as Shiv ling at Amarnath cave melts completely

Editor

The Shiv ling at the Amarnath cave in Jammu and Kashmir has melted completely, leaving pilgrims upset. This year’s Amarnath Yatra, the annual pilgrimage to the shrine, began on June 28. It will end on August 21. So there’s still a month to go. In mid-July, as many as 1.51 lakh pilgrims had already visited the shrine, located north-east of Srinagar. READ | 5 killed, 3 injured in landslide on Amarnath Yatra route A official spokesperson said in June that well over 2 lakh pilgrims had registered for the yatra.…

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Violence dipped accoss Kashmir Valley: Home Ministry

Editor

Terror violence has come down in Jammu and Kashmir substantially ever since the state has been placed under Governor’s rule but incidents of stone pelting have increased marginally, official data has shown. According to the data compiled by the Home Ministry, there has been a decrease in attacks carried out by terrorists between June 16 to July 15 in comparison to the month of Ramadan when the suspension of operations was in force. While the suspension of operations was announced for a month with the beginning of Ramadan on May…

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To anchor Kashmir solution, Geelani must rise to the part

Editor

Of late a number of experts have been suggesting new solutions to Kashmir. Most of them are sitting outside J&K. They think that their telescopic view offers them a clearer picture of the conflict than the people living with the day-to-day brutalities of violence. The distance, they argue, enables them to disseminate a dispassionate and balanced view of the trouble. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this view, but the problem is that they live on borrowed strategies and formulas that have no connection whatsoever with the reality in J&K.…

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Basant Rath, Kashmir’s real-life ‘Singam’ in trouble

Editor

Some call him Singam, some call him Dabang, senior IPS officer Basant Rath has been caught on the wrong side of the law. Rath, inspector general of police, traffic, was caught on camera, slapping a young man in Srinagar, sparking anger across Kashmir. The 44-second video shows Rath, in civvies, arguing with a youth at Partap Park in Srinagar’s nerve-center of Lal Chowk and then slapping him repeatedly. Later, another version of the same video with 1.50 minute duration surfaced on social media, in which the youth is appreciating his…

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Fear of poaching gives sleepless nights to Kashmir’s Politicians

Editor

Beware of predators and poachers, take care of your flock. This is the classic warning for shepherds while they graze their flock in the Himalayan meadows. In Kashmir’s political meadow of expedient opportunities, the same warning is now visiting mainstream politicians. After the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) withdrew from the ruling alliance in Jammu and Kashmir, the politics of make and break is back with a vengeance. Dissident MLAs of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), including the influential Shia leader and former minister Imran Ansari and his uncle, Abid Ansari,…

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J&K Govt orders ban on 30 Islamic, Pakistani channels, Cable operators threaten shutdown if ban not revoked

Editor

The Jammu and Kashmir government on Wednesday ordered for an immediate ban on 30 Islamic and Pakistan-based religious and spiritual channels across all cable television networks. A notification, issued by the Additional District Magistrate, Srinagar to the owner of a private cable television network based in the city, said that the operator has three days to suspend the “banned religious and news channels”. The list of channels also includes controversial Islamic preacher, Zakir Naik’s Peace English and Peace Urdu Channels and Pakistani channels such as GEO News, ARY, QTV and…

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Joint Resistance Leadership urges global rights bodies to visit Kashmir prisons

Editor

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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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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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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