19 of marriage party killed, 55 injured in Jammu mishap


Collection of Rs 20 crore fine from erring drivers fails to decrease road accidents in J&K; 1100 die in the year 2011-12
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Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Nov 24: : Nineteen persons died and 55 others of a marriage party sustained injuries when their bus skidded off the road and plunged into a 300-ft deep gorge in Ramnagar area of Udhampur district on Saturday night.

Inspector General of Police, Jammu, Dilbagh Singh, told The Hindu that a bus carrying a marriage party skidded off the road and rolled down into a ravine in Dudu Basantgarh area, 160 Kms from Jammu. The bus, which had permissible seating capacity of only 42 passengers, was carrying as many as 74 people on board.

Nineteen persons, including two brothers of the bride groom, died till late this evening. The IGP said that 11 of them died on spot and others subsequently succumbed to injuries either en route or under treatment at two hospitals in Udhampur and Jammu.

Even after some patients were discharged today, nearly 45 of the injured were still admitted and under treatment at District Hospital at Udhampur. Mr. Singh said that seven of the critically wounded were shifted to Army’s Northern Command Hospital at Udhampur. Of them, four were battling for life. Three persons with critical injuries were rushed to Jammu and admitted to Government Medical College (GMC) Hospital, IGP said. One of them died this evening, raising the toll to 19.

Minister of Health, Sham Lal Sharma, visited the injured at the three hospitals today. Deputy Commissioner, P K Pole, and Senior Superintendent of Police, Udhampur, Ashkoor Wani, said that almost all the injured were responding to treatment. Mr Wani said that the rescue operation took several hours overnight, despite a helping hand by CRPF, as the site of the accident was nearly 60 Kms off Chinani on Srinagar-Jammu National Highway.

Some of those killed in the tragedy have been identified as Purshotam Singh and Joginder Singh, real brothers of bridegroom Rakesh Singh, besides Karnail Singh, son of Nasib Singh, Mohd Shafiq son of Mohd Din, Kuldeep Singh son of Kirpal Singh, and Balbir Singh son of Bodh Raj, all residents of Basantgarh.

Governor, N.N. Vohra, and Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah, have said that they were shocked over the huge loss of life. Chief Minister directed the authorities to provide best possible treatment to the injured, even if anybody would have to be flown to PGI Chandigarh or New Delhi for specialised treatment.

Today’s, according to authoritative sources, was the umpteenth of such tragedies in Udhampur-Doda belt of Jammu region where more than 200 commuters are estimated to have died in identical road accidents in the last two years. Officials said that, like many of such incidents in the past, the ill-fated bus on Saturday was 15 years old. It was not immediately clear whether or not the driver was carrying a license.

The matter of issuance of over 50,000 driving licenses in two years by Regional Transport Officers of Udhampur and Doda few years back has been raked up by media and the civil society. However, men of consequence in politics and bureaucracy have proactively shielded the accused officials, allegedly for a larger nexus. Even the CBI has given a clean chit to some of the accused, allegedly for pecuniary considerations.

A House Committee of J&K Legislature, which was set up in the wake of intense public criticism of the alleged nexus, has failed to stop operation of condemned vehicles by drivers carrying fake licenses in the hilly terrain that has grown quite infamous for road accidents in the last four years.

J&K Transport Commissioner, Meraj Ahmad Kakru, admitted that operation of condemned buses, often handled by incompetent drivers, was a major reason of the alarming rate of road accidents in Doda-Udhampur belt. He told The Hindu that as many as 1,100 persons had died in such accidents in J&K in 2011-12 alone. Mr Kakru said that the government had taken a slew of measures to reduce these numbers. As of now, he said, there was “little improvement”.

Mr Kakru said that Traffic Police and Motor Vehicle Department had imposed penalties and collected fine worth Rs 20 Crore from the erring drivers last year. He said that all executive magistrates were now being authorized to seize vehicles 15 years of age or more. “They have been directed to launch an awareness campaign and discourage overloading and driving by incompetent drivers with harsher methods”, Mr. Kakru said.   

END

Web Link:

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JeM’s last visible commander killed in Sopore

The Pakistani national used VOIP; was active in north Kashmir since 2002
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Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Nov 24: The “divisional commander” of Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), Yasir alias Yasir Tunda, was killed in Sopore-Rafiabad area of Baramulla district in the early hours of Saturday in a joint operation by the Special Operations Group (SOG) of the Jammu and Kashmir Police and the Army.

Inspector General of Police, Kashmir Zone, Shiv Murari Sahai, toldThe Hinduthat the operation was launched after the Sopore Police received a tipoff late on Friday that suggested the presence of the JeM’s last visible commander of north Kashmir at the hideout. The SOG Sopore and Rashtriya Rifles 22 Bn swooped on the hideout at the house of one Ali Mohammad Bhat at Chatlora village, 4 km from the apple rich town of Sopore.

In the raid, conducted after evacuating the civilian population, Pakistani militant Yasir, who operated with codenames such as Showkat, Shoaib and Shehzeb, was killed. In the brief exchange of gunfire, Sub Inspector Dilraj sustained injury.

People of the village said that the SOG men failed to find Yasir when they conducted a room-to-room search. However, three SOG men, led by Mr. Dilraj, came back to a room in which a woman was bedridden. The woman claimed that there was none other than her baby under the quilt. As Mr. Dilraj pulled it to verify, Yasir, who was hiding under it, took out his pistol and opened fire.

Dilraj was hit, but he quickly pumped a volley of bullets from his assault rifle, killing the militant on the spot.

“Major achievement”

The IG described Yasir’s killing as a major achievement for the police and security forces. Yasir had taken over the top post of his organisation after the death of “chief commander” Qari Hamaad in an encounter at Fore Shore Road around the Dal Lake here last year.

Sopore Superintendent of Police Imtiyaz Hussain Mir said the JeM militant was eliminated in a surgical operation. Yasir was involved in a number of terror attacks on the police, security forces and civilian soft targets. He had shot dead People’s Democratic Party’s Sopore Zone president Ghulam Mohammad Mir at Ladoora village in 2008. At Chatlora, he had gunned down National Conference activist Ghulam Mohiuddin Bhat.

Police sources said Yasir was in touch with his cadres in Kupwara and the organisation’s top leadership in Pakistan through Skype as he would often interact with them through Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP). His laptop has been seized and it was being scanned to learn about his connections, activities and planning.

Highly placed police sources in Srinagar said that Yasir, along with two associates, recently escaped from a cordon-and-search operation at Divar in Kupwara district. Mostly operating in Lolab, he was active in north Kashmir districts of Kupwara and Baramulla since 2002. The sources said Yasir was the JeM’s “divisional commander” in north Kashmir.

END

Web link:

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/jems-last-visible-commander-killed-in-sopore/article4132097.ece

24 November 2012

For two families, little cheer from acquittals

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

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SRINAGAR, Nov 23: Paadshah in Kashmiri means the king but 65-year-old Paadshah Begam of Shamswari, in the congested downtown Srinagar, has been reduced to something worse than a beggar by the protracted separation from two of her sons. First one, Mirza Iftikhar Hussain, returned to her after fourteen years of lodgment in Delhi’s Tihar Jail when he acquitted by Patiala House court in the Lajpath Nagar bomb blast case of May, 1996, in April 2010. Her third son, Mirza Nissar Hussain, who was awarded death sentence in the same case by the trial court, was among the two convicts acquitted by Delhi High Court on Thursday last.

Neither of the acquittals has, however, faded the somber ambience at Mrs. Paadshah Begum’s home. Once an imposing heritage building, her four-storeyed house stands ruined by a fire and apparently no maintenance in over a decade. She remains statue to the breaking news in Kashmir that brings cheer to thousands of families across the Valley.

Nobody greets the two Shia Muslim families as all expressions of joy are strictly proscribed in the mourning month of Muharram. Shamswari, like the residential locality of the second acquitted convict, Mehmood Ali Bhat, is draped in a barrage of black banners and buntings---paying tributes to the martyrs of Karbala. “Allah has been merciful and we have heard (the news of Mr. Nissar’s acquittal) with all gratitude to Him”, she said when asked for her reaction to the news that, interestingly, came almost parallel to Ajmal Kasab’s hanging.

“Kasab”, her first son Mirza Iftikhar said, “got a better justice”. This never-ending tribulation has completely ruined our family, our business, our studies, and everything. In the last 17 years, each of us has died every day. Kasab was luckier as he died quick and alone”.

“We had a flourishing business of Kashmir art and handicrafts in Delhi and Kathmandu. I was 19-year-old and had just finished my Pre-University when we were arrested. My younger brother Zaffar was preparing for his MBBS entrance in Delhi. Nissar, was a Grade 9th student and just 16-year-old”, Mirza Iftikhar told The Hindu. “They (Delhi Police) have snatched away 17 years of Nissar’s life and 14 years of Iftikhar’s. Who will return me these precious years of my two sons’ life?” Mrs. Paadshah asked.

Why does the family view its suffering as “never-ending” even after both of its scions have been declared as innocent? “Nissar has been framed in another case---a blast that took place in Jaipur, Rajasthan, when he was a middle school student in Batmaloo (Srinagar). Neither he nor I have ever seen Rajasthan”, Mirza Iftikhar explained.

“This (Jaipur blast) case is also running into 17th year. We are told that statements of 200 witnesses have been recorded and there are 100 more. It simply means that my brother will never return to his home”, Mirza Iftikhar added. While referring to the timeline of now concluded Lajpath Nagar case, Mirza claimed that the judgment had been delayed for about a decade inspite of the higher courts passing orders that the trial be completed within a month or within six months. He claimed that as many as 32 judges at the trial court had tossed the disposal to one another.

Why was the Mirza family targeted selectively? “One Javed Kirwaw was our neighbourer in Srinagar. He too had a business in handicrafts and would often visit us at Delhi as well in Nepal. We had no inkling of his being a militant with JKIF”, Mirza said. “Whosoever knew him, was picked up and booked”, Mirza Iftikhar said of the militant who later escaped to Pakistan. Even after the acquittal, Police, he alleged, did not let the family register a business unit with KVIB.

While as three of the Mirza sibling’s sisters were married in their absence from 1996 to 2010, co-accused and now acquitted Mehmood Ali Bhat could not attend any of the three deaths and five marriages in his family. He was in Tihar Jail when his mother died in February, 2000. On two occasions, however, he was escorted to see his family in Srinagar when his maternal uncles died.

“When we heard of Kasab’s hanging on Wednesday, we prayed for Mehmood but prepared ourselves mentally for the last agony. But, it was a miracle when on Thursday we heard that he has been acquitted”, Mr. Bhat’s 70-year-old father, Haji Sher Ali told The Hindu. “Yes, it must come as a relief but we don’t why we don’t feel quite relieved of the suffering”, he added.

END

Link: http://www.thehindu.com/news/states/other-states/for-two-families-little-cheer-from-acquittals/article4127629.ece

SRINAGAR, November 22, 2012

Kashmir doesn’t shut for Kasab

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR: For 50-year-old Hafizullah Bazaz, whose Bazaz Cloth House on Aalikadal bridge makes a brisk business, Maharashtra has suddenly become important. But, not for the fidayeen terror Ajmal Amir Kasab’s early morning execution at Pune’s Yarawada Jail. Mr Bazaz, who lives at Narwara and runs a shop at Aalikadal, both in the deep interior of downtown Srinagar, is concerned over the way Shiv Sena cadres have bludgeoned into submission Mumbai’s Shaheen Dhada over her controversial Facebook post.
Mr Bazaz has had a detailed and comparative reading of how 21-year-old Ms Shaheen has been forced to delete her post, which was perceived to be “offensive” to the Shiv Sena patriarch Bal Thakeray. “What about the people who ransacked the hospital of Shaheen’s uncle and sent threats to the family?” Mr Bazaz retorts when asked for his reaction to Kasab’s hanging to death.

“We the Kashmiris have got nothing to do with Kasab’s execution”, says he “as we are all convinced he has been eliminated for his involvement in an act of brazen terror”. “We can not identify ourselves with Kasab and his terrorism for ours is a political movement, a struggle for freedom”, adds Mr Bazaz, an ardent supporter of the Hurriyat chairman, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq. “Why should we call or observe shutdown on Kasab’s hanging?”

Mr Bazaz refuses to buy the Omar Abdullah government’s theory that the traders in Valley were “too much bitten” by two three-month-long street strikes in 2008 and 2010. He vehemently defends each of 1600-odd days of shutdown the Kashmiri militants and separatist leaders have enforced in the last 22 years of armed strife. “We have given sacrifices and we’ll continue (to give more in future) if our hartal is for Kashmir’s freedom. We have, in fact, developed an addiction for a shutdown”.

Mr Bazaz, nevertheless, has a big question for all those celebrating credibility of the Indian system of the administration of justice. Asks he: “Advaniji and his men brought down Babri Masjid years before Kasab struck on Mumbai. Who of them has been punished? All those responsible for Malegaon and Makka Masjid are Scot free. Even in Kashmir, hundreds of Ajmal Kasabs are roaming freely”.

Like the bustling marketplaces at Aalikadal, almost all shops and business establishments in the capital city, as also in all other parts of Kashmir valley, operated without an iota of tension or disturbance on Wednesday.

Eminent businessman and former President of Federation Chamber of Industries Kashmir (FCIK), Shakeel Qallandar, echoed Mr Bazaz. “We shut businesses for a cause. Why should we mourn death of someone who was a dreaded terrorist and committed carnage?” asked he. Mr Qallandar, however, cautioned that the situation would be different and Kashmir would “burn” if Afzal Guru was hanged to death. “India”, he said “did justice to Kasab. But, Afzal Guru did not participate in the firing on Parliament”. He alleged that justice had been “bungled” in Guru’s case only to placate some zealots.

Hurriyat and all other separatist groups, who have had passion of making suo moto statements on each and every ‘newsy’ development, remained tightlipped.Both, Hyderpora and Rajourikadal, seats of the two factions of the Hurriyat---Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq---were calm all through the chilly hours of the day of Kasab’s execution. From Nowhatta’s Shaheed Muntazar Chowk to Bohrikadal Chowk on Nallah Maar Road The Hindu found just two shops shut---both for reasons not linked to Kasab’s death.

Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) in Srinagar, Syed Ashiq Hussain Bukhari admitted that the authorities were “extremely tense” over the potential of disturbance the separatists could create over a Pakistani militant’s execution by the Indian jail authorities. “Immediately after learning about it in the morning, we sounded a red alert”, Mr Bukhari disclosed. However, through an extensive tour of so-called “Chhotta Pakistan”, this correspondent did not find any columns of Police or Central Reserve Police Force that usually dot every street in Srinagar on the days of tension.

Keywords: Ajmal Kasab hanging, 26/11 terror case, Mumbai terror attack case

 

Separatists, clergy target two J&K High Court judgments

20 November 2012 , By Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR: For the first time in over two decades, separatist groups and a section of the clergy in Kashmir have joined hands, and roped in fragments of the intelligentsia, in their attempt to reverse two recent judgments of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court.

One, delivered by Justice Hasnain Masoodi, puts unprecedented tabs on a Muslim husband’s right to arbitrarily terminate a marriage. Another, by Justice Mansoor Ahmad Mir, interprets life imprisonment as the convict’s lifelong detention in jail.

Jamiat-e-Ahl-e-Hadith (JAH), a religious organisation headed by separatist leader Maulana Showkat Shah until his killing at a mosque here in April 2011, has taken the lead in dismissing Mr. Justice Masoodi’s judgment on talaaq as “an unacceptable interference in the matters of the religion of Islam.”

On November 4, the JAH organised a meeting of different religious groups and intellectuals to discuss the import of the judgment and to assert that the ruling would meet a tough resistance if it was not withdrawn forthwith. Critics of the judgment included a number of leading lawyers, clerics and separatist politicians.

A former High Court judge Bashir Ahmad Kirmani and some prominent legal practitioners, however, prevailed upon the forum with their argument that an anarchical reaction would not serve any purpose. They went in appeal to the same judge.

Mr. Justice Masoodi decreed that both partners of a marital union had equal rights in Islam, and the husband’s competence of pronouncing divorce was not arbitrary, unqualified or absolute. His ruling came in a civil suit, in which a divorcee had challenged her husband’s manner of separation and sought maintenance as a matter of right. However, contesting her petition, the husband argued that he had divorced her and was not under any obligation to pay her alimony.

The judge details the Shariah and Quranic injunctions to find support for the ruling that “husband cannot have unrestricted or unqualified power to pronounce talaaq.”

In its immediate reaction, the JAH said non-theological courts of a democratic set-up had no competence to adjudicate matters defined in the Quran and Hadith. “If this judgment is accepted today, the man-made courts would be judgmental tomorrow on all other religious matters of the Muslims. This has never been acceptable to Muslims in the past, nor would ever be in future,” it said in a statement.

With many of the Valley’s clerics, politicians and civil society members dragging Mr. Justice Masoodi’s judgment to a public discourse, Hurriyat hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani and constituents of his secessionist umbrella have started targeting Mr. Justice Mir over his November 16 interpretation of imprisonment for life. Dismissing Muslim League chief Ashiq Hussain Faktoo’s petition, the judge ruled that life imprisonment meant lifelong detention until the state used its prerogative of reducing the term.

In their frontal attacks on the judge, some separatist leaders made uncharitable remarks, including allegations of “working under political influence.”

Dr. Faktoo is not the only separatist leader affected by this judgment. As many as 19 people, including the author of Mr. Geelani’s biography, Dr. Mohammad Shafi Shariati, a former Professor of Persian at the University of Kashmir who later became a top functionary of the radical militant group Jamiatul Mujahideen, are serving life terms. Their families and organisations have been awaiting their release on their completing 14 years of imprisonment. Mr. Justice Mir’s ruling has virtually sealed their fate.

Advocate-General Mohammad Ishaq Qadiri; senior advocate Zaffar Ahmad Shah; the former judge of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court and Chief Justice of Odisha High Court, Bilal Nazki; and the former Law Minister, Muzaffar Hussain Baig, said invariably that a public discussion on court judgments was a “legal, constitutional and democratic right” of every member of the society. However, Mr. Qadiri, Mr. Shah and Mr. Baig told The Hindu that the best way of seeking remedy was the forum established under law and the Constitution.

END

http://www.thehindu.com/news/states/other-states/failing-to-secure-key-ideologues-release-in-court-secessionists-hit-the-streets/article4112610.ece

Failing to secure key ideologue’s release in court, secessionists hit the streets

AHMAD ALI FAYYAZ

SRINAGAR: Having lost a long-running legal battle to secure the release of high-profile ideologue Ashiq Hussain Faktoo in Jammu and Kashmir High Court last week, radical secessionists in Kashmir have turned to the streets seeking their leader's release.

Large parts of the Kashmir valley shut down on Monday in response to calls from Syed Ali Shah Geelani's faction of the Hurriyat Conference and the Muslim League--a party led by another key secessionist leader who is in prison, Massrat Alam Bhat.

Earlier a top-ranking commander of the Islamist guerrilla outfit Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen (JM), Mr Faktoo has been serving life imprisonment awarded to him by Supreme Court on account of his involvement in the assassination of a noted human rights activist Hridhay Nath Wanchoo. Mr Wanchoo was kidnapped by the JM militants and his bullet-riddled body was later recovered in a locality in close vicinity of then J&K Police headquarters in December 1992.

After Mr Geelani, Dr Faktoo’s profile remains unmatched among the separatist leaders for a variety of reasons. Husband of the equally prominent separatist activist and Dukhtaraan-e-Millat (DM) chief, Syeda Asiya Andrabi, Dr Faktoo enjoys the distinction of being the only Kashmiri militant who has completed Ph D during his 13-year-long continued detention. Dr Faktoo, as also Chairman of so-called moderate faction of the Hurriyat Conference, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, has been awarded Doctorate of Philosophy by the Department of Islamic Studies of the University of Kashmir in the last two years.

During his detention, Mr Faktoo has joined as head of Muslim League. His deputy, Massarat Alam, played arguably the most important role in the street agitation over Amarnath land row in Kashmir in the year 2008.

Legal battle:

Earlier this year, Dr Faktoo had made a representation to the state government, seeking termination of his detention with the argument that life imprisonment meant imprisonment for 14 years. His application was also based on the fact that the Srinagar Central Jail authorities had appreciated his conduct and behaviour, including his voluntary assignment of teaching IGNOU distance education courses to a number of jail-mates.

However, the state Home Department dismissed Dr Faktoo’s representation on the ground that the precedent of reducing the term of imprisonment was by no means binding on the government. Subsequently, his counsel and former head of High Court Bar Association, Mian Abdul Qayoom, who himself represented HCBA as a Hurriyat constituent for about ten years, challenged dismissal of Mr Faktoo’s application in High Court.

In his November 16 judgment, Mr Justice Mansoor Ahmad Mir dismissed Dr Faktoo’s petition, ruling that the life imprisonment meant ‘imprisonment for entire life’. Justice Mir referred to a number of Supreme Court rulings, including Swamy Shradananda vs State of Karnataka, AIR 2008 SC 3040, and decreed that “punishment of imprisonment for life handed down by the Court means a sentence of imprisonment for the convict for the rest of his life”.

Mr Geelani came out with the first reaction from Hurriyat as he publicly attributed motives to Justice Mir’s judgment and dismissed it as an extension of “political vendetta”. Calling for a protest shutdown, he threatened to launch an agitation if Mr Faktoo was not released from jail.

“In 2009 the Chief Minster had said that he will look into the case and do justice accordingly. But recently in an interview with the Hindustan Times, Mr Abdullah said that he wanted to see Dr Qasim in jail for whole life. It directly shows that the decision has been given at the behest of the Chief Minster,” Geelani said addressing a press conference at his residence on Saturday last. He alleged that the courts in this state and the country were not “free from the influence of occupation”.

Keywords: release of Ashiq Hussain Faktoo, Kashmir valley shut down

I hereby express my gratitude to all the friends who greeted me through Facebook, Twitter, email, telephone, SMS or chat or called on me with their greetings and good wishes over my joining as Jammu and Kashmir Bureau Chief of ‘The Hindu’ in the last three days. On a far bigger platform now---one of India’s largest read, top influential and the highest circulation dailies that has 17 editions and 35 printing centres spread all over the country with print order of over 20 Lakh copies and the global internet readership of over 50 Lakhs---I will continue to report and analyze developments in J&K State with utmost sincerity, objectivity and professional excellence; and, also without any fear or favour from/for any quarter howsoever powerful.

Being fully conscious of The Hindu’s credibility and its image of being India’s “only serious and non-partisan daily” and consequently the “only news study source” for this country’s policymakers and millions of the participants of all country-level competitive examinations, I will do my best to report issues concerning J&K and its residents in a completely professional and non-partisan form so as to make The Hindu a reliable news source not only for one Crore residents of J&K State but also for millions of its readers all over India and across the globe.

Ahmed Ali Fayaz

J&K Bureau Chief

The Hindu