Kashmir.Watch

Author: hamid

  • Efforts on to develop Jammu, Srinagar stadia of international standards: Omar

    ‘Assistance issue in this regard taken up with Centre’

    ‘Upgradation of urban, rural sports facility a focused area’

    Srinagar: Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah Thursday said that the State Government is keen to upgrade and enhance sports facilities in urban and rural areas so that the talent in different sports is harnessed and groomed to the highest standards.

    “We intend to develop facilities of international standards at the sports stadia in Srinagar and Jammu and this matter has been discussed with Union Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley during his recent visit to the valley. We have urged for the liberal Central help in this regard”, he told the media at the sidelines of Sher-i-Kashmir Sports Award Investiture Ceremony organized by J&K State Sports Council at SKICC here.

    According to a statement issued to KNS, Omar Abdullah said that while various steps have been taken to create new sports infrastructure in both rural and urban areas, other measures aimed at nurturing youth in different sports is also under active focus of the Government. He said that up to the mark sports facilities and infrastructure is imperative to develop sports and sports persons. “We are devoting fullest attention towards this goal”, he said adding that a comprehensive sports policy will also be framed to help catapult sports of all categories holistically.

    In today’s investiture function, the Chief Minister gave away awards to twenty outstanding sports persons for participating in the International events and earning medals and showing their excellence during the years 2010-11 and 2011-12. The Sher-i-Kashmir Awards are conferred upon ten outstanding sports persons in each year.

    Minister for Sports and Culture, Raman Bhalla, Minister of State for Sports, Feroz Ahmed Khan, Secretary Sports Council, Daleep Thusoo and a large number of sports persons and sports lovers were present on the occasion.

    Those who were conferred awards and cash prizes including: Atul Pangotra in Taekwondo, Ishfaq Hussain in Kayaking & Canoeing, Arjun Gandotra in Roller Skating, Mohammad Saud Bhat in Taekwondo, Devinder Pal Singh in Roller Skating, Phungsog Yangdon in Skiing, Major Vikram Singh Jamwal in Fencing, Masooda Akhtar in Skiing, Brinder Singh Manhas in Taekwondo, Arjun Gupta in Taekwondo, Kapil Pangotra in Taekwondo, Adil Mohi-ud-Din Bhat in Kayaking and Canoeing, Harish Kumar in Power Lifting, Preet Dutta in Power Lifting, Yasmeena Akhtar in Skiing, Arushi Kotwal in Chess, Shaurya Bali in Equestrian, Arun Singh Charak in Wushu, Lalit Singh in Wushu and Zaheer Abbas Khan in Teakwondo.

    These sports persons have participated in International events in the years 2010-11 and 2011-12 winning gold, silver, bronze and other medals. Under the Sher-i-Kashmir Sports Award, ten outstanding sports persons who participate in the international competitions in games and sports recognized by International and Asian Sports Federations and Government of India Sports Boards. It carries a cash prize ranging from Rs.20,000 to Rs.30,000 per sport person besides a certificate and citation at the Investiture Ceremony.

  • Traffic mess

    Traffic mess at MA Road and Regal Chowk in Srinagar on Thursday.

  • Restriction to remain in place tomorrow

    Srinagar: Authorities on Thursday decided to impose restrictions in the areas coming at least under five police stations in Srinagar city on Friday to foil the proposed rally of Awami Action Committee (AAC) at Municipal Park Srinagar, sources said.

    They added that the decision to this effect was taken in a high level meeting.

    Worth to mention that AAC has planned to hold a public rally at Municipal Park on the eve of its 50th year of foundation day.

    It has been decided that restrictions will be imposed in areas falling under the jurisdiction of Khanyar, Nowhatta, MR Gunj, Safa Kadal and Rainawari police stations, sources said.

  • Yasin Malik Pays tributes to Shaheed Qazi Nisar

    Shaheed Qazi Nisar was a leader, who strived for safeguarding the “Muslim identity” of Kashmir.

    JKLF to re-start “quit Kashmir” movement from 23rd June 2014.  A total shut down will be observed in Kashmir and people will march towards Lal Chowk to defeat nefarious anti kashmiri designs of RSS and BJP: Yasin Malik 

    Srinagar: Chairman Jammu Kashmir liberation (JKLF) Mohammad Yasin Malik  has paid rich tributes to Mirwaiz south Kashmir Moulana Doctor Qazi Nisar Shaheed on his martyrdom anniversary. Terming him as a great Kashmiri scholar and leader, Yasin Malik said that his struggle and sacrifices cannot be ignored by any one and today we all express our gratitude and love for this noble soul. Yasin Malik while recalling his social, political, religious struggle said that Shaheed Qazi Nisar was a leader who strived for safeguarding the “Muslim identity” of Kashmir and today when we remember him, we all should follow his footsteps and come forward to save our national identity and resistance movement . Yasin Malik said that today the enemies of Jammu Kashmir are again out to destroy and snatch our “Muslim” identity from us. RSS and BJP are planning to declare Lakhs of outsiders (Non-Kashmiri) “refugees” (Sharnarthees) as the citizens of Jammu Kashmir and thus change the demography of Jammu Kashmir and snatch from us our national identity and Muslim character. Yasin Malik said that Kashmiris will not remain silent spectators over these nefarious designs and JKLF has already decided to re-start “quit Kashmir” movement from 23rd June 2014. He said on Monday 23d June 2014 a total shut down will be observed in Kashmir and people will march towards Lal Chowk and stage a peaceful protest rally against these ill designs against Kashmiris.

    Meanwhile JKLF has expressed its heartfelt grief and sorrow over the sad demise of Ghulam Nabi Malik @Jouhar of Parray colony Sopore. The deceased was the father of a great martyr Naseer Ahmad Malik. A JKLF delegation consisting of Abdul Rashid Magloo, Farooq Ahmad Dar ( zonal deputy general secretary), Molvi Reyaz, Ghulam Qadir khan, Mohammad Azeem Zargar and Abdul Rashid Mir (Resh Moul) visited the residence of the deceased and paid rich tributes to him. Delegation while praying for the departed soul also prayed for the bereaved family.

     

  • India Says 40 Indians Kidnapped in Iraq

    NEW DELHI: Forty Indian construction workers have been kidnapped from the militant-controlled city of Mosul in northern Iraq, India’s foreign ministry said Wednesday.

    Ministry spokesman Syed Akbaruddin said it remains unclear who is behind the kidnappings or where the hostages are being held. India is dispatching its former ambassador to Iraq, Suresh Reddy, to the strife-torn nation, the foreign ministry said, and has set up a control room in Delhi to monitor the situation.

    Within Iraq, Sunni militants have taken over large swaths of the nation, beating back the country’s military in a violent insurgency that threatens to destabilize the region.

    Families of several of the kidnapped men say they received phone calls in recent days before the kidnapping. Devender Singh, a 33-year-old laborer who hails from India’s northern state of Punjab, phoned his wife this past Sunday and told her “the situation there was scary,” a cousin of his said in an interview late Wednesday. The family’s two children, five and seven years old, “haven’t been informed that their father is in trouble,” according to the cousin, Arvinder Singh.

    Details remain sketchy and it is too early to draw conclusions about the hostage-taking, said Leela Ponappa, a former deputy national security adviser under the Congress party-led government from 2007 to 2009. So far, she said, there are few suggestions that “Indian nationals are being targeted per se” by kidnappers. She considered it more likely that the workers were “just caught in a serious conflict zone.”

    The kidnappings present a challenge to India’s new administration, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who took office just weeks ago and who has promised to be tough on security and is seen by his supporters as a problem-solver capable of making quick decisions. One of the most dramatic hostage-takings took place about 15 years ago—during the last time Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party was in power—when Indian Airlines flight 814 from Nepal to India was hijacked and diverted to Afghanistan, leading to a dayslong standoff. To resolve that crisis, India agreed to release three militants in its custody.

    On Wednesday, the foreign ministry said India is working with the construction company that employed the workers as well as international humanitarian agencies to obtain more information. Mr. Akbaruddin said the Indian government hasn’t received requests for ransom.

    Many of the kidnapped Indian workers come from Punjab, the foreign ministry said. In the Punjab town of Jalandhar, a relative of another of the kidnapped workers described speaking to his uncle on this past weekend by phone.

    “The area was captured by terrorists,” he said his uncle, Roop Lal, told him. “We are OK,’ were the words when I last spoke to him,” said the relative, who gave his name as Jaspal.

    He said his uncle has been working as an iron-rod fixer in Iraq for two years. After the area was captured by militants, his employer had shut down operations and the workers had been moved “to an old thread-weaving factory,” Mr. Jaspal said his uncle told him.

    India’s Ministry of External Affairs has opened a call center for relatives of Indian citizens currently in Iraq. By Wednesday evening, it had received more than 200 calls, a ministry official said.

    Gurpinder Kaur of Majitha in Punjab said her brother, Manjinder Singh, is also among the kidnap victims in Iraq. She said she spoke to him Tuesday afternoon and he said there were five others with him in Mosul. “There was sound of gunfire at the time,” Ms. Kaur said. She quoted him as saying, “So far, we have been safe.”

    India’s foreign ministry estimates that there are about 10,000 Indian nationals living and working across Iraq. A majority, Mr. Akbaruddin said, are in areas not directly affected by the violence. Nearly 100 are in places “where the security situation is tenuous,” he said, including 46 Indians stranded in another militant-controlled city, Tikrit, with whom the government is in contact.

    Analysts said dispatching Mr. Reddy, the former Indian ambassador to Iraq, was a promising move since he would be in a position to call on his relationships with officials within the Iraqi government, whose assistance might be crucial as India tries to garner more information and resolve the crisis.

  • Iran will do everything to protect Iraq shrines: President

    TEHRAN: President Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday that Iran would do whatever it takes to protect revered Shiite Muslim holy sites in Iraq against Sunni militants fighting the Baghdad government. 

    “Dear Karbala, Dear Najaf, Dear Kadhimiyah and Dear Samarra, we warn the great powers and their lackeys and the terrorists, the great Iranian people will do everything to protect them,” he said, naming the sites of the shrines in an emotive speech in Khoram-abad, near the Iraq border. 

    Rouhani on Saturday pledged to help the Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s government if it asked for assistance, though at that time no such request had been forthcoming. 

    In his speech on Tuesday, Rouhani mentioned petitions signed by Iranians who said they were willing to fight in Iraq “to destroy the terrorists and protect the holy sites”, which are visited by hundreds of thousands of Iranian pilgrims annually. 

    “Thank God there are enough volunteers Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds in Iraq to fight the terrorists,” he added. 

    The Iranian pledges follow a call by top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani for Iraqis to volunteer to resist the onslaught spearheaded by the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), who hold the major cities of Mosul and Tikrit and are fighting north of the capital. 

    Iran is 90 per cent Shiite. Maliki, a Shiite, spent years in exile in Iran when Sunni Arab dictator Saddam Hussein was in power in Baghdad. 

    ISIL considers Shiites to be apostates. The major Shiite shrines in Iraq are in Najaf and Karbala, south of the capital, in the district of Kadhimiyah in Baghdad and in Samarra to the north, which the militants have made repeated, but so far unsuccessful, efforts to enter. 

    At least 5,000 Iranians have pledged online to defend Iraq’s Shiite shrines against the Sunni extremists, a conservative news website in Iran reported on Tuesday.

  • Former militant killed by unknown gunmen

    Srinagar: A former militant was killed when unknown gunmen on Tuesdayevening fired upon him in south Kashmir’s Anantnag district, official sources said.

    They said thirty year old Munawar Zaman Malik son of Mashkoor Malik was fired upon by unknown gunmen in Arwani Chowk in Bijbehara.

    Munawar sustained critical injuries and was immediately rushed to a Srinagar hospital, official sources said, adding where he succumbed to his injuries.

    Government forces have cordoned off whole area and conducted searches, they added.

     

  • Grenade attack in Sopore, boy hurt

    Srinagar: Suspected militants on Tuesday evening hurled a grenade towards a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) camp in north Kashmir’s Sopore area of Baramulla district, official sources said.

    Official sources told GNS that militants lobbed a grenade towards 179 Battalion camp of CRPF in Sopore town injuring a civilian identified as Faizan.

    The boy had received minor splinter injuries, a senior medical official told GNS.

    Soon after the incident, huge contingents of police, CRPF and army arrived at the spot and cordoned off whole area. The forces conducted searches which were on till last reports came, sources said.(GNS)

     

  • Sopore police aborts kidnapping of a girl

    Srinagar: Sopore police aborted a bid to kidnap a girl when it caught three kidnappers red handed while abducting a girl in Sopore.

    According to a statement issued to KNS, Umar Maqbool Lone son of Mohammad Maqbool Lone resident of Lorihama accompanied with Aaqib Hassan Rather and Umar Hassan Rather sons of Ghulam Hassan Rather resident of Achabal Sopore were caught red-handed by the Police Sopore while attempting to abduct one girl (name with held) near SBI Branch at Sopore.

    The general public and pedestrians also gathered on-spot and tried to set ablaze the kidnappers car bearing registration number  4151-JK05C which was saved by police interference. The general public appreciated the timely action of Police Sopore for saving the girl from being kidnapped. A case FIR number 91/2014 under section 366, 511, 354,109 RPC stands registered in Police Station Sopore and investigation is going on.

  • Police violating Apex Court Judgment: DAK

    ‘Only Expert Panel can investigate criminal negligence of doctors’

    Srinagar: President Doctors Association of Kashmir (DAK) Dr Nisar ul Hassan today in a statement said that it is illegal for police to say that death of a pregnant woman at sub district hospitalPattan was because of negligence of doctors. “Police by this statement is violating the apex court guidelines on criminal negligence of doctors, said a statement issued to KNS.

    According to Dr Hassan the Supreme Court has ruled that doctors should not be held criminally responsible unless there is prime facie evidence before the court in the form of credible opinion from another competent doctor in the same field of medicine supporting charges of a rash and negligent act.The statement said that Apex court has emphasized the need for care and caution in prosecuting doctors for criminal negligence in the interest of society and considering the noble services rendered by the fraternity. “This judgment by Supreme Court came in as many prefer recourse to criminal process as a tool for pressurizing the medical professionals for extracting uncalled for or unjust compensation. Moreover the loss of reputation the noble professionals suffer by booking them for criminal negligence cannot be compensated by any standards. It is necessary to protect noble professionals treading the righteous path,” Dr Hassan said.

    “Government is projecting doctors as villains thus have broken the age old bond of doctor patient relationship. A mistrust created with a design has shattered the sacred relation. This is being done to cover up government’s inefficiencies and misdeeds. This attitude of government has created a fear psychosis among doctors which tells upon the efficient patient care. People of the valley must acknowledge and realize the services rendered by doctors in abnormally abnormal conditions. Doctors are bound by medical oath and ethics and no doctor willingly can inflict harm to any patient.”