Kashmir gets a dream ropeway - The Hindu

Kashmir gets a dream ropeway - The Hindu

Kashmir gets a dream ropeway at Koh-e-Maraan

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

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SRINAGAR (December 23, 2013): Twenty-five years after the authorities conceived the Valley’s first ropeway and created the Jammu and Kashmir Cable Car Corporation [JKCCC] to boost tourism at Gulmarg, Kashmir got its second tourist-carrier on Monday. Three Ministers of Omar Abdullah’s government— Ghulam Ahmad Mir, Mian Altaf Ahmad and Ali Mohammad Sagar­— dedicated the 594-metre monocable ropeway in an ambience of enthusiasm to the residents of Srinagar.

Minister of Environment Mian Altaf said that the Rs 6.50-crore ropeway would ferry devotees, particularly the aged and infirm, daily from the sprawling Malkhah cemetery to the revered saint Sultanul Aarifeen Sheikh Hamza Makhdoom’s shrine and back. The 16^th century saint’s splendid shrine is resting on the foothills of Koh-e-Maaraan [the hillock of the snakes], commonly known as Hari Parbat, overlooking the old city.

Valley’s largest Gurudwara Chhattipadshahi as also the Kashmiri Pandits’ spiritual rendezvous of Sharika Devi —seat of the 18-armed goddess Sharika Bhagwati, the presiding deity of Srinagar city— are both on the foothills. Mughal emperor Akbar and his successors had set up the capital Naagar Nagar around the same hillock where the festival of Badamwari was an annual feature of the spring celebrations until 1980s. Akbar’s fort, now in dilapidated condition and occupied by paramilitary forces, is the highest viewing point over the city.

JKPCCC Managing Director Tufail Matoo told The Hindu that the Makhdoom Sahib ropeway had been planned in the thick of a street turmoil in 2010. Its commercial operation missed several deadlines but finally became a reality. With eight celluloid-body cabins, four incoming and four outgoing, it will carry 16 passengers either way, for a return journey at Rs 100 each. “We are expecting 1,500 passengers and revenue of Rs 1.50 lakh every day”, Mr Matoo said. Each cabin has the capacity for four passengers.

Mr Matoo said that ropeways were high financial viability ventures in tourist States like Jammu and Kashmir. With an investment of around Rs 30 crore, JKPCCC commissioned Asia’s highest and the longest (4.9 km) and the world’s second highest altitude ropeway, Gulmarg Gondola in May 2005, seven years after completion of its phase-1. “With 6.70 lakh visitors, it fetched us Rs 34 crore in 2012. This year, over 6 lakh tourists have enjoyed a ride on Gondola from Gulmarg to Apharwat (13,400 ft) and the revenue has crossed Rs 32-crore mark”, Mr Matoo said. From January 1^st week, Gondola would mostly carry the skiing enthusiasts from all over the world to the famous alpine slopes of Kongdori and Apharwat.

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J&K official fired for bungling MBBS entrance exams

 

Mushtaq Peer was not arrested allegedly thanks to pressure from a senior Congress leader

 

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

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SRINAGAR: Government of Jammu and Kashmir has terminated the post-retirement service of the former Chairman of Board of Professional Entrance Examinations [BOPEE] Mushtaq Ahmed Peer on account of his prima facie involvement in the multi-crore question paper leakage scam and acquisition of properties worth over Rs 10 crore in the last three years.

 

General Administration Department’s order No: 1551, issued on November 14 and confirmed by the Cabinet on November 19, did not mention the reason of Mr Peer’s abrupt dismissal. “The contractual appointment of Prof. Mushtaq Ahmad Peer, as Consultant, ordered vide Government Order No.1326-GAD of 2012 Dated 13.12.2012 read with Government Order No. 833-GAD of 2013 dated 31.5.2013, is hereby terminated with immediate effect”, said the order.

 

Following his retirement as Chairman of BOPEE, Mr Peer had been engaged for a term of two years for providing consultancy to the government on the proposed fast track recruitment of class-4 employees.

 

Well-placed sources in the Omar Abdullah government revealed to The Hindu that the top corridors of power decided to terminate the consultant’s service weeks after the High Court entertained a Public Interest Litigation and directed the Crime Branch to hold a transparent inquiry into the allegations of manipulating the MBBS selections against him. As Mr Peer’s involvement was established and FIR registered, the State government dismissed the consult “to stave off a huge embarrassment”.

 

The sources revealed that the Crime Branch decided to arrest and interrogate Mr Peer but a political intervention foiled the move. “A senior Congress leader, who has been instrumental in Mr Peer’s out-of-turn and backdoor promotion, exerted a lot of pressure and warned the officials against his arrest. It was then decided that he would be simply summoned and questioned”, said an official.

 

Inspector General of Crime Javaid Gillani, however, refused to endorse. “He actually turned up voluntarily to face the questions. We have asked him to return for further interrogation on Thursday”, Mr Gillani asserted. He confirmed that the Crime Branch conducted raids on Mr Peer’s acquisitions and land holdings and seized “a lot of incriminating material”.

 

Huge acquisitions

 

The IGP said that Mr Peer had “sold off question papers to some brokers for Rs 65 Lakh who in turn earned Rs 5 crore by collecting money from their clients” in just the 2012 session. “These candidates secretly wrote their exams with masse copying at a private hotel on the Boulevard. We have found 12 of them among the top 30 candidates in the order of merit. Money has been paid by cheques”, Mr Gillani said.

 

The accused has been found to have purchased over 10 kanals of land in Ganderbal, a built-up house in the posh Tawi Vihar area of Sidhra in Jammu, some properties at Pahalgam, besides three flats in Jammu and New Delhi — all in the last three years.    

 

Shower of favours

 

While as Estates Department has allotted an independent house to Mr Peer in Jammu, Department of Evacuees’ Properties has transferred ownership of another house to his name. He and his wife have been granted several service extensions after their retirement. Sources said that a senior Congress leader had put the government under tremendous pressure to appoint Mr Peer as Vice Chancellor of Islamic University of Science and Technology, Awantipore, at the retirement of Dr Abdul Rashid Trag in February 2014.

Mr Peer and his family were not accessible on telephone on Wednesday.

 

END

BJP, PDP hand-in-glove to grab power in J&K, alleges Omar

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

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SRINAGAR: The ruling National Conference’s (NC) acting president and Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Sunday alleged that Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was “in nexus with Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to grab the power through illegitimate means in Jammu & Kashmir.”

While addressing a public meeting in the opposition PDP’s stronghold at Kellar, in Shopian district of South Kashmir, Mr. Abdullah asserted that there was a discernible chemistry between the PDP and the BJP. He said the two political outfits of “communal orientation” had an eye on the power in J&K and both had stakes in a communal divide ahead of the next year’s Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. He cautioned the NC cadres against the communal forces’ attempts to subvert peace and tranquility.

“There’s definitely a hidden contact between the PDP and the BJP. Mufti Sayeed’s secret meetings with the close associates of Lal Krishna Advani and his close contact with Narendra Modi has surfaced and exposed the PDP’s ideology and strategy,” Mr. Abdullah asserted. “They are running with the deer and hunting with the hound. But take it from me today their boat is destined to sink under the weight of this party’s own duplicity and hypocrisy.”

Mr. Abdullah referred to the two elections in the State’s Legislative Council in the last nearly five years of his regime and claimed that the members of the BJP, Kashmir-based PDP and Jammu-based National Panthers Party had voted for common candidates.

For the second time in a week, Mr. Abdullah pledged that the NC’s friendship and association with the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance coalition at the Centre was firm and irreversible.

He referred to one of Mr. Sayeed’s purported statements in the recent past and said the NC would never ask the electorate to return 40 seats in the State Legislative Assembly “for resolving the Kashmir problem.” “I have been saying it since day one of the campaigning in 2008 that the Assembly and the Lok Sabha elections have got to do nothing with resolution of the Kashmir problem. This is essentially a political problem that needs a political resolution to the satisfaction of all the stakeholders,” Mr. Abdullah said.

He asserted that the 24-year-long militancy in the State was “purely political” and claimed that the Kashmiri youth had not picked up the gun for elections, development, employment or governance. He implored the separatist leadership to “shun rigidity” and respond favourably to the Centre’s offer of an unconditional dialogue and peace process.

“There are no other options left. Violence definitely is not the way-out,” Mr. Abdullah said.

Meanwhile, addressing a rally at Mendhar in Jammu on Sunday, Mr. Abdullah’s confidante and the NC’s Jammu chief Devender Singh Rana said: “Mufti Sayeed is using a former Director of IB, who advises the BJP on security matters, a women social activist running an NGO and close to Mehbooba Mufti, and a Delhi-based senior journalist who happens to be Mufti’s close friend, as conduits between the PDP and the BJP. Snubbed by the Congress, the PDP is now building bridges with the BJP.”

END

Website Link:

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/bjp-pdp-handinglove-to-grab-power-in-jk-alleges-omar/article5361331.ece


 

Dear friends

Having been heavily preoccupied with my professional assignments, I regret I had no time to update this blog since April 2013.

Now that nearly 1.10 lakh views have been recorded despite this blog being inactive, I am planning to update it with all of my stories since the day I joined The Hindu on November 14, 2012.

Best wishes

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
Senior Assistant Editor
The Hindu

British woman found dead on houseboat

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

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SRINAGAR, Apr 6: A 22-year-old woman from Manchester, U.K. was found dead at her houseboat on Dal Lake here in the morning on Saturday.

Srinagar Senior Superintendent of Police Syed Ashiq Bukhari said that the young British tourist had been staying at New Beauty houseboat on Dal Lake since February last week. Police on Saturday received information about her death.

According to the SSP, the team of doctors that conducted the post-mortem examination on her body at Jawahar Lal Nehru Memorial Hospital of Rainawari observed as many as 45 marks of violence and wounds. The woman’s clothes were found torn.

“Doctors have taken samples and it would take them some time to ascertain whether the woman had been raped and killed. We have preserved the body at Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences Soura,” Mr. Bukhari toldThe Hindu.

The SSP said that Police Station Ram Munshi Bagh registered the First Information Report and flashed a radio signal to all the barriers and Police posts on Srinagar-Jammu highway to intercept and check all the outgoing foreigners.

He said that immediately the only suspect in the case of the woman’s “possible rape and murder” was a Dutch national, Richard Calliper Dennis (43) who was staying in another room of the houseboat after his arrival on April 4 but was missing.

A police party intercepted a taxi carrying the male tourist from The Netherlands from Srinagar to Jammu, a mile short of Jawahar Tunnel on the 300 km-long highway. The taxi was seized and the “fleeing tourist” and the driver were detained.

Police sources said Dennis admitted to the “murder” during sustained questioning.

END

The Hindu web link:

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/british-woman-found-dead-on-houseboat/article4590320.ece

Kashmir’s dream hospital has seen 12,860 deaths in last 5 years: CAG 

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

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SRINAGAR: Apr 6: Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS), ambitiously created by Kashmiri political icon Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah before his death in 1982, till date has “no roadmap to achieve excellence in medical research.” 

It has neither been formulated nor presented in any of the governing body meetings, said the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India’s Report tabled in both Houses of Legislature in Jammu on Friday.

Chief Minister Omar Abdullah is the Chairman of the SKIMS governing body that performs the role of the cabinet for the semi-autonomous super-specialty hospital and the deemed university. Post-graduate and post-doctorate courses, including MCh and DM are conducted at the State’s most crowded hospital that had been primarily designed as a tertiary care hospital. 

“The research activity has been restricted just to payment of monthly clinical research allowance of Rs. 2,500 to the faculty members without verifying the eligibility conditions for the allowance,” the CAG report observed. It has noticed 40 per cent shortage of faculty at SKIMS and even higher 56 per cent at its affiliate SKIMS Medical College Bemina in March 2012. There is a shortage of over 32 per cent in medical, paramedical and nursing staff. “No staff was posted for the critical care department of the Institute having a bed strength of 12, which was raised to 60 in January 2012.”

The CAG further observed: “The system of drawing of samples of drugs for testing to ensure procurement of quality medicines and drugs is not in the Institute. The drug quality control laboratory stopped functioning since November 2003 and Rs. 1.40 crore released during 2009-11 to set up an advanced quality assurance laboratory was lying unspent in a civil deposit. Physical verification of drugs and surgical instruments had not been conducted since June 2008.”

Even the one-time much-hyped Genetic Centre has been found to be a failure. “The advanced centre for human genetics and local area networking systems could not be established due to the improper planning despite an investment of Rs. 12.12 crore made thereon,” the CAG report said.

Hot on the heels of over 4,000 deaths at SKIMS last year, the CAG has noticed that 12,860 hospitalised patients died in 2007-2012 period, as many as 7,875 after 48 hours of their admission.

Even the emergency medicine department has been found to be “not fully equipped to deal with cases of road traffic accidents having multiple organ injuries including orthopaedic injuries. Ambulances meant for patients have been found mis-utilised to the extent of 40 to 47 per cent during 2008-12.” 

The CAG report has also pointed out large-scale irregularities, financial embezzlements and a unique modus operandi of parking the plan funds without utilisation to hide them from lapsing at the end of the fiscal year. 

Replying to most of the half-margins, Director of SKIMS, Showkat Ali Zargar reportedly said he would “look into the matter.”

END

The Hindu web link: http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/kashmirs-dream-hospital-has-seen-12860-deaths-in-last-5-years-cag/article4585689.ece

Promise of paradise that didn't come true

The absence of a comprehensive rehabilitation policy for surrendered militants has made life hellish for those who decided to give themselves up and join the mainstream

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

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Jammu & Kashmir’s first “Surrender Policy” was floated by Governor Gen. (retd.) K.V. Krishna Rao’s administration in 1995. It was almost identical to the policies introduced for militants involved in the North East and Naxalite insurgencies: Rs.1.5 lakh worth of fixed deposit receipts payable after three years, a monthly stipend of Rs.2,000 for three years, Rs.15,000 for surrendering an AK-47 rifle and Rs.3,000 for a pistol or revolver. It held little promise about rehabilitation.

On January 31, 2004, the Mufti Sayeed government introduced a fresh policy. Accepting India’s “integrity” and “Constitution” were flagged as a precondition for surrender. It was offered “to those terrorists who undergo a change of heart and eschew the path of violence and who also accept the integrity of India and [the] Indian Constitution to encourage them join the mainstream and lead a normal life and contribute towards prosperity and progress of the State as well as the Nation.”

It did not work either. Much like its prototypes, it did not carry an assured promise of rehabilitation. Not many militants were enticed by it.

Designated routes

Those who did surrender were used by the police, armed forces and intelligence agencies to set up counterinsurgency groups to wipe out not only separatist militants but also civilians perceived to be the sympathisers or supporters of separatism. Some of them, like the Ikhwanul Muslimoon, founder Kukka Parray and his lieutenant Javed Shah were installed as legislators. Many, including Parray and Shah, were subsequently killed by unidentified gunmen.

Those who survived found themselves in the infamous Red Index of the CID, a confidential register that contains names of over 400,000 Kashmiris “suspected” of links with militancy and terrorism. Very few on the list have ever got a passport or a government job.

Even so, from about 2005 to 2009, over 4,000 “retired militants” and their families in Pakistan were enthusiastic about efforts by pro-New Delhi political leaders to get them back into the mainstream in the State. Politicians, including Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti, played a key role in promoting New Delhi’s package for returning militants. On November 23, 2010, Omar Abdullah’s government launched the “surrender and rehabilitation policy” specifically for this lot. 

But the recent arrest of Syed Liaquat Shah for an alleged terror plot as he came into India through the Nepal border has shown that this latest scheme has more problems than its predecessors. 

By Mr. Abdullah’s own admission, not one of the 241 militants came back through the designated routes of the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi, Attari [train], Wagah [bus] besides Chakan-Da-Bagh and Kaman Post in J&K.

In Srinagar and New Delhi, officials knew well that the Pakistani establishment would never permit these people to return through the Delhi airport or Wagah. That would have been used by India to establish that the Kashmir insurgency was a Pakistan-sponsored “proxy war” rather than an indigenous separatist struggle.

As Chief Minister Omar Abdullah stated in the Assembly, 241 militants along with over a thousand of their family members crossed into India from Nepal to take up the government’s offer.

What is strange is that no one in J&K or India thought it fit to recognise the Kathmandu route and set up coordination between Srinagar, Delhi, Gorakhpur and Kathmandu to facilitate the surrenders.

Flourishing racket

What is clear is that under the noses of intelligence agencies in both India and Pakistan, the surrender policy was a flourishing business for a whole network of middlemen, from Karachi, Islamabad, Muzaffarabad, Kathmandu to cities in India, including Srinagar.

Nazia, an undergraduate from Government College Islamabad Pakistan, who married former Aljihad militant Mohammad Sahafi Itoo and reached Drusu, Pulwama along with her husband and two children in February 2012, recounted her brush with the agents.

“They take responsibility for getting us through the Pakistan side. They arranged our passports and visa, managed our travel to Karachi, booked our seats on the Karachi-Kathmandu flight and facilitated further our passage from Gorakhpur to Jammu and Pulwama. We spent a total of Rs.8 lakh,” says Nazia.

Losing identity

But in less than a year, both Itoo and Nazia have realised their return as “the biggest blunder of our life.” After suffering a great deal of tribulation, Nazia managed to get her 11-year-old daughter, Kinza Noor and 5-year-old son, Hanzla admitted in a local school.

Itoo, who does not know how to read or write, and claims to have been at a militant training camp for just 13 days, used to earn Rs.5,000 while working with companies and shopkeepers at Bara Koh, a suburb of Islamabad.

“Had suicide not been forbidden in Islam, I would have done so last year,” he says. “I have no work to do, nothing to earn and eat.”

Itoo’s parents have given him a single room at their house. Nazia runs a boutique and earns Rs.2,000 to Rs.3,000 a month. While the men are treated warily by family members, especially by siblings, and looked upon as another mouth to feed, or as a potential rival in property claims, their wives are seen as “outsiders,” as the language, culture and way of life are quite different from the Kashmiris in the Valley. Mohammad Yousuf alias Jamsheed, who returned to his home at Turkawangam in Shopian along with his wife Shahnaz and four children in December 2011, has been earning Rs.4,000 a month for working at the local taxi stand. Like the Pulwama family, Yousuf and Shahnaz have not found ready acceptance by the family. They have been given a room to live with their children. Guests too stay and sleep in the same room. The washroom doubles up as a kitchen.

Schooling

“We have been duped into this blunder [of returning to home] by Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti. They came to Pakistan and announced that [the] J&K Government had a rehabilitation scheme for us. When we reached here, we learned that there is none,” says the couple. Most schools deny admission to the children of the surrendered militants.

“We have lost our identity. We don’t know the land and the people we belong to,” Shahnaz adds. “It’s a completely different language and culture here. We can’t adjust ourselves. Nobody invites us or mixes with the women and their children from Azad Kashmir or Pakistan.” She sounds more disillusioned with the people in Kashmir than the government.

Both the families maintain that they had been denied everything — driving licence, elector’s photo identity card, ration card, passport, government and private job. 

Other surrendered militants have the same sorry tale to tell. 

Nisar Ahmad Kawa of Nund Rishi Colony Bemina crossed the Line of Control to join the training camp of Ikhwanul Muslimeen in 1991. In 2002, he married Ishrat Fatima of Khwajamal. The couple, with their two sons and a daughter, returned in September 2012. Kawa, who earned Rs.15,000 running a shop at Madeena Market in Muzaffarabad, now earns a paltry Rs.3.000 for his labour at a restaurant in Srinagar.

“We have ruined our life. Whenever someone calls us from Pakistan, we tell them not to fall into the trap. There’s no surrender or rehabilitation policy here. Whenever we’ll get a chance, we will go back,” says Kawa.

Ishrat sounded shattered. “Ham ne suna thaa yeh jannat hai, lekin yeh to bilkul dauzakh hail (We had been told Kashmir is Paradise. But we have found it worse than hell.”)

The impoverished couple had no hesitation in saying that they spend most of their time quarrelling in the room they have been temporarily given by Kawa’s brother.
“We just pray for our death. Everybody here has ditched us. Kashmir has changed fully from what it was in 1990. There is total individualism now. Nobody thinks about others.”

ahmed.fayaz@thehindu.co.in

END

The Hindu web link:
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/promise-of-paradise-that-didnt-come-true/article4585535.ece?homepage=true