Category: Today

Amit Shah to visit Kashmir today, focus remains on development and security

Editor

On his first trip to Kashmir as Union home minister on Wednesday, Amit Shah will discuss the consolidation of recent military and non-military gains in the Valley. He is also expected to ask governor Satyapal Malik about the developments that led him to conclude that leaders of the separatist Hurriyat Conference were ready for a meaningful dialogue with the Centre, according to people familiar with the matter. Shah and home secretary Rajiv Gauba will fly to Srinagar on Wednesday afternoon and return a day later. A senior government official told…

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Talk Or No-Talk, Talk of the town

Editor

Doors open for talks if Hurriyat believes in Constitution: BJP Hurriyat (G) tight-lipped on talks with GoI Encouraging that Hurriyat ready for talks: Governor Kashmir can be resolved through dialogue, not militarily: Hurriyat (M) Talks must be held with Hurriyat: Farooq Abdullah JK BJP opposes talks with Hurriyat Mehbooba welcomes Hurriyat’s readiness to talk Doors open for talks if Hurriyat believes in Constitution: BJPBJP national vice-president and in-charge J&K Avinash Rai Khanna today said they would talk to the Hurriyat leaders only if they believed in the country’s Constitution. “I…

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As PDP is moving towards a makeover, Muzaffar Baig would be getting a bigger role

Editor

The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) is mulling considerable changes in its party constitution to transfer many of the powers of the all-powerful president Mehbooba Mufti to its patron Muzaffar Hussain Baig in a bid to revive its fortunes ahead of the Assembly elections. In its dismal performance in the parliamentary elections, the PDP lost all three seats in the Kashmir valley, and among the losers was the party president Mehbooba Mufti. That was a big blow to the party as it was aware of the anger of people against its…

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Two deserter SPO’s among four JeM rebels killed in Pulwama

Editor

Four rebels of Jaish-e-Mohammad ( JeM) including two Special Police Officers (SPOs)-turned-rebels were killed in a 15-hour-long gunfight with forces in a village in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district on Friday. A police spokesperson said on a specific information about presence of rebels at Panjran village in Litter area of Pulwama, a cordon and search operation was launched on Thursday evening by joint party comprising army’s 44 Rashtriya Rifles, CRPF and Special Operation Group (SOG) of Jammu and Kashmir police. “As the searches were going on, hiding rebels fired on the…

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Four rebels, Civilian killed during two gunfights in south Kashmir

Editor

Four rebels and a civilian, who the police said was an associate of the rebels, were killed in two gunfights in south Kashmir on Friday. While two Hizbul Mujahideen rebels and a civilian were killed in a gunfight with security forces in Shopian district, two rebels were killed in an encounter in the Tral area of Pulwama district. They are believed to be associated with the Jaish-e-Mohammed and their identity is yet to be ascertained. One of the rebels killed in the Shopian gun battle has been identified as Adil…

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One Civilian killed, 70 injured as protestors help rebels escape the siege

Editor

A man was killed and at least 70 people were injured in clashes in Indian Kashmir on Wednesday as protestors helped rebels escape two separate sieges by government forces, police and hospital authorities said. While protests in support of the surrounded rebels have increased on the Indian side of the divided territory in recent years, it is rare for insurgents to escape. Militant groups fighting the 500,000 Indian soldiers deployed there demand independence or a merger with Pakistan. Thousands of villagers poured onto roads Wednesday as two suspected rebels fought…

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Despite the win, Modi can’t scrap 370, neither authority to decide next CM: Farooq Abdullah

Editor

Farooq Abdullah, National Conference (NC) chief and newly elected Member of Parliament from Srinagar, said on Friday that no matter how powerful the electoral mandate of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he could not remove Articles 370 and 35A. He said the preservation of Articles 35A and 370, besides grant of regional autonomy to Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh, would be the main plank of his party, while exuding confidence that NC would form the next government in the state on its own. “No matter how powerful the Prime Minister has become after winning…

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Zakir Musa, Kashmir’s most wanted rebel killed in Tral

Editor

Zakir Rasheed Bhat alias Zakir Musa, Kashmir’s most-wanted rebel and chief of terror outfit Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind (AGH), an offshoot of Al-Qaeda, is believed to have been killed today evening in Tral area of South Kashmir’s Pulwama district. Musa was on top of the most-wanted list for quite some time now and had been eluding the security forces for more than six years. He had joined Hizb-ul-Mujahideen in July 2013, leaving his engineering degree at a Punjab college midway. Son of an engineer working with the Jammu and Kashmir Government, Musa…

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Kashmir shuts on resistance call, Mirwaiz house arrest, March to Eidgah foiled

Editor

The authorities in Kashmir on Tuesday foiled the proposed march by the separatists to the Eidgah ground in Srinagar by imposing restrictions in old city areas and also keeping the “martyrs’ graveyard” out of bounds for the visitors. The authorities also put moderate Hurriyat Conference leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq under house arrest at his Nigeen residence here as the faction led by him had called for a shutdown and Eidgah march on Tuesday to commemorate the death anniversaries of two assassinated separatist leaders — Moulvi Farooq and Abdul Gani Lone.…

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National Highway blockade chokes Kashmir as traffic remained disrupted for fifth consecutive day

Editor

The traffic on the 270-km Jammu-Srinagar national highway remained disrupted for the fifth consecutive day on Sunday as only stranded vehicles were allowed to move on the road after the clearance of debris of landslides that have hit the highway since Wednesday. Though the traffic was scheduled to be restricted to defence vehicles only on Sunday, the authorities allowed stranded vehicles, mostly trucks carrying essential commodities, to move on the highway. More than 5,000 vehicles were stuck on the highway since Wednesday due to continuous landslides and shooting stones in…

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