Category: Union Territory

Says killings of Panchs, Sarpanchs condemnable

Srinagar: BJP J&K President Ravinder Raina on Thursday alleged that Pakistan is trying to convert Kashmir into “graveyard” and is scared from BJP as emerging political force in Valley. Terming the recent spree of killings of BJP Panchs and Sarpanchs “condemnable”, he said Pakistan has got frustrated to further its agenda on the soil of Kashmir.

Talking to a presser in Jammu, BJP J&K President said that the attacks carried out by militants on BJP Panchs and Sarpanchs in past couple of weeks are highly “condemnable”. Terming the killings “condemnable” and “heart-wrenching”, he said the strikes clearly depict the frustration of Pakistan who doesn’t want Kashmir a peaceful territory.

The way BJP workers are being killed selectively by Pakistan’s brutal militants is a clear depiction that the neighboring country is afraid of BJP from its growing image in Valley.
“Pakistan has got frustrated and it is why BJP Panchs and Sarpanchs were killed unabatedly during dark in Bandipora, Kulgam and Budgam”, Raina said and adding Pakistan is trying to convert Kashmir into graveyard, it is why innocents are being killed.

He added Pakistan spilled enough blood of innocents in Valley but BJP will not tolerate it further. “Innocents were killed mercilessly by Pakistan, school going girls were kidnapped and killed, educated youth persuaded to militancy in order to fuel violence in Valley”, BJP leader said.

Asserting that BJP has emerged a powerful political force in Valley, Raina said the party is spreading fast in every walk of life. “BJP is spreading fast at grass root level. Every walk of life is getting associated with it including intellectuals of the society who supports BJP wholeheartedly”, he said.

Raina added that the growing image of BJP in Valley panics Pakistan, militants and their sympathizers and it is why our workers are being targeted in a well thought out conspiracy. He said BJP will not allow Pakistan to get succeed in its nefarious designs on the cost of Kashmiris.

“Pakistan can’t stop BJP from spreading in Valley”, he claimed. He said J&K is an “integral part” of India and people of the territory are Indians by heart. “More than 95 percent people in J&K are Indians by heart and are patriotic”, he asserted.

He said people of J&K unfurled tri-color in every house on August 5 and celebrated the first anniversary of abrogation of Article 370 with great zeal and enthusiasm and added the same passion will be displayed on August 15 when tri-color will be hoisted in every house and Panchayat Ghar. (KNS) 

A case has been registered at police station in Awantipora in this regard, says official.

PTI

Security forces have unearthed two militant hideouts in the forest area of Awantipora in Pulwama district of Jammu and Kashmir, recovering a cache of arms and ammunition, police said on Thursday.

Acting on a tip off about presence of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militants in Badroo forests of Awantipora, security forces launched a search operation on Wednesday night, a police official said.

“During search in the early morning hours (of Thursday), two hideouts of LeT outfit were busted and destroyed,” the official said.

He said incriminating material and huge cache of explosive material and ammunition have been recovered from hideouts which include over 1,900 rounds of AK ammunition, two hand grenades and an UBGL thrower with four grenades.

The other explosives recovered include ammonium nitrate-like substance, five gelatin sticks, one crude pipe bomb and three code sheets.

A case has been registered at police station in Awantipora in this regard, he added.

MS refutes reports as baseless

Srinagar: Speaking volumes about the shoddy approach of the SKIMS administration in dealing with COVID-19 positive cases, the doctors and other paramedic staff, having contracted deadly virus complained that frontline warriors receive ‘derisory’ treatment at tertiary care hospital.

Sources at SKIMS Soura told the news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO) that COVID-19 affected faculty members including that of doctors and other paramedic staff receives worse treatment as the administration is yet indecisive to reserve separate spaces for them in the sanatorium.

A senior faculty member, who was tested positive for Corona-Virus recently, had to run from pillar to post to get him admitted at SKIMS wherein he had treated hundreds of affected patients since the outbreak of deadly pandemic.

Sources said the senior doctor, after being admitted at SKIMS, struggled for days together to arrange a bed for him in the infectious disease ward. They further said the administration other than tall claims do nothing for its own faculty not to talk of commoners.

Notwithstanding, repeated requests and representations, by the staff members to the Director concerned to reserve space for them in the hospital, no measures were taken by the administrations in this direction thus far.

If sources are to be believed, Director SKIMS, Dr A G Ahangar in an interview to a news channel had rejected as ‘baseless’ that any doctor or paramedic has contracted the virus while treating COVID-19 patients.

Dr Ahangar had also claimed to have ordered an internal inquiry to ascertain the circumstances as to how a senior doctor contracted the virus, however his contentions ripped apart the moment more and more faculty members turned positive at SKIMS.

Talking to KNO, Medical Superintendent SKIMS, Dr. Farooq Jan while refuting the reports that staff members receive poor treatment said the administration takes due care of COVID-19 affected doctors.

“There are only two doctors admitted in the hospital at present and both receive better treatment. We recommend home quarantine for mildly symptomatic patients and those having contracted virus are admitted at isolation wards, we never discriminate against anyone be it a doctor or a commoner,” Dr Jan added.

Sources said several doctors; paramedics which include nurses and technicians were tested positive for Corona-Virus at SKIMS in the recent past. Moreover reports of three HoDs’ also came positive for deadly pandemic.

“Being factually frontline warriors, faculty members at SKIMS are receiving extremely poor treatment. Most of them prefer to isolate themselves at home as there is no space left for them in the hospital. SKIMS administration seems to be least bothered to provide quality treatment to its own staff whose services to the masses in these testing times cannot be ignored at all,” sources said—(KNO)

PTI

Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday recorded 482 new coronavirus cases, taking the total number of infected people to 26,413, even as eight COVID-19 patients died during the last 24 hours in the union territory, officials said.

“Eight people, who were COVID-19 positive, have died over the past 24 hours in Jammu and Kashmir,” the officials said, adding that all the deaths were reported from the Kashmir valley.

The COVID-19 death toll in the union territory has now risen to 498 of which 461 are from the valley and 37 from the Jammu region, they said.

Meanwhile, 376 of the total new COVID-19 cases in the UT are from Kashmir while 106 are from the Jammu region, they said.

There are now 7,392 active cases in the union territory, while 18,523 patients have recovered from the infection, they added.

The cases detected on Wednesday include 59 people who had returned to the union territory recently.

At 88, Srinagar district in central Kashmir recorded the highest number of positive cases followed by 53 in Anantnag district. For the second consecutive day on Wednesday, Srinagar recorded less than 100 new cases in a day, official said.

PTI

Leh: A total of 53 fresh COVID-19 cases were reported in Ladakh, taking the Union Territory’s tally to 1,770, officials said on Wednesday.

Ladakh accounted for nine coronavirus-related deaths, while 1,255 patients have recovered from the disease since its outbreak in March.

The officials said while 28 fresh cases of the infection were detected in Kargil, 25 were reported in Leh district.

Among the 1,770 cases recorded in Ladakh so far, 931 were reported in Kargil and 839 in Leh, they said, adding that 742 patients (82 per cent) recovered from COVID-19 in Kargil and 513 (61 per cent) in Leh.

They said the number of active cases in the region stands at 506, of which 321 were reported in Leh and 185 in Kargil.

While five coronavirus patients died in Leh district, four others died of the infection in Kargil district. Eight of the deaths had occurred in the past three weeks, the officials said.

PTI

Jammu: The Pakistani army on Wednesday violated ceasefire by using heavy fire and mortar shells to target forward areas along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir’s Rajouri district, prompting a befitting response from the security forces, officials said.

“At about 1950 hours today, the Pak army initiated unprovoked ceasefire violation by firing with small arms & shelling with mortars along the LoC in Nowshera sector of Rajouri district”, defence spokesman said.

The Indian army retaliated befittingly, he said.

Srinagar: Despite clear cut directions from the Ministry of Human Resources and Development to all the universities and colleges to call off the online recruitment process with immediate effect, the Islamic University of Science and Technology (IUST) recently conducted the interview for the post of Registrar online.

On 29 July 2020, Bharat Bushan Baghat, Deputy Secretary (CU) in the Minstry of Human Resources and Development through D.O. No 48-9/2020-CU.III, a copy of which lies with the KNS, clarified to the Vice Chancellor of Central University of Rajasthan not to hold any recruitment process through online mode.

“It is not advisable to conduct online interviews for the selection of teaching faculty. Moreover a policy decision on online recruitment of teaching faculties is yet to be taken in the Ministry. I would therefore request you to call off the online recruitment process with immediate effect and cancel the selection committee meetings held so far,” it reads.

However, despite the directions, the IUST conducted interview for the post of Registrar on August 10 in which nearly 10 shortlisted candidates appeared. Sources said much to the annoyance of the candidates and the experts, there was lot of disturbance due to the slow internet speed during the interview.

One of the candidates who appeared in the interview told KNS that it was an embarrassing situation for both the experts and the candidates as due to 2G internet speed nobody was listening to the other clearly.

“I could not put my point in proper perspective as the video quality was too bad due to slow internet speed. It was an embarrassment for the interview committee as well as the candidates to appear through this mode,” he said.

While appealing to the authorities to hold the interview for the post afresh through normal procedure, he said, “It would be injustice if any candidate is selected through this mode with others.”(KNS)

Opposes merger of different engineering wings in PWD, abolishing reservation for Self Help Groups

Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir Apni Party (JKAP) president Syed Mohammad Altaf Bukhari on Wednesday vehemently opposed the J&K government decision to subsume engineering wings of various departments into Public Works Department saying that the move will create too much of mess and confusion on the ground.

In a statement issued here, Bukhari, who has himself remained a Public Works minister in the previous government in J&K, observed that the R&B department lacks the requisite capacity to handle such a broader mandate.

“A small instance in place is the snow clearance operation which was assigned by the Gulmarag Development Authority (GDA) to the mechanical wing of the Public Works Department at Gulmarag last year. The snow clearance which would otherwise take a few hours took three to four days and the vital roads to this world famous tourist destination remained blocked for days together,” he recalled.

The JKAP president said that there will be joblessness because of the merger decision and the technical staff who are presently working in different departments are bound to face hierarchical issues in addition to the hiccups in their career progression.

On setting up a committee of administrative secretaries to work on modalities for merger of over a dozen departments with PWD, Bukhari observed that such decisions are akin to putting the cart before the horse. “Once the decision of merger has already been taken by the previous Lt. Governor led state administrative council without any prior home work or taking any stakeholders on board, what is the fun of constituting such a committee to chalk out modalities now?” he asked.

Bukhari said that the J&K government should have consulted all the stakeholders for threadbare deliberations before arriving at any such arbitrary decision. “No blueprint was put before the State Administrative Council in this regard. Even no feedback was sought from the technical staff and other stakeholders who are bound to get affected after the merger of their departments into PWD. So the present Lt. Governor should intervene and rescind this unilateral decision at an earliest,” he observed.

Bukhari expressed surprise over the rush in taking policy decisions more so when the new Lt. Governor Manoj Sinha has taken his charge recently and shall require some breathing time and space to understand the working and the mandate of different government departments. “In this situation taking such hasty decisions are bound to impede developmental activities in J&K which are already at their lowest ebb,” he added.

He said that the amalgamation of all the engineering wings in the PWD department will create too much confusion and many issues related to seniority, pay disparity, and other employee welfare measures would crop up subsequently.

Meanwhile, taking a strong exception to the abolishment of reserving projects for Self Help Groups in J&K, Bukhari said that the move will render thousands of educated unemployed youth jobless. “There are around 3000 such groups operating across J&K comprising degree and diploma holders. These groups involve over 15500 engineers who have made this scheme a success. I wonder why our government is pursuing anti youth policies which can have serious ramifications for the overall situation in J&K,” he remarked.

Bukhari said that there can be some shortcomings in the scheme which can be rectified but abolishing the reservation clause defeats the main purpose of the scheme for which it was planned and executed in J&K. “Our government is not in a position to provide government jobs to these educated youth. When you abolish the reservations of projects for such professionals, you are going to add to the burgeoning rate of unemployment which can lead to turmoil,” he added.

He said the GAD order by virtue of which the government has snatched bread and butter of the thousands of families who are completely dependent on these groups should be immediately withdrawn. “Thousands of our educated unemployed youth who have crossed the age bar are associated with these groups. The Lieutenant Governor should not turn a blind eye towards their economic plight and order immediate withdrawal of this controversial order issued by the GAD,” he demanded.