Category: Union Territory

Over 200 people affected by disease

Srinagar: Doctors on Saturday confirmed outbreak of gastroenteritis in Qazirgund area in district Anantnag resulting into severe illness of over 200 people including children.

According to KNS correspondent, the disease has affected many villages of Qazigund block like Kund, Rizlaw, Waripora, Nigeen Pora, Kralaw and Baingooun. The locals in these affected areas have alleged supplies of contaminated drinking water. Locals alleged that they are being supplied contaminated water which is responsible for this disease.

“We had approached the PHE department many a times but seeking their attention for supplies of safe drinking water but to no avail,” said a local adding that the spread disease has created a wave of anger and apprehension among the inhabitants of the entire area.

Talking to KNS, Dr Salim-u-Rehman director health services Kashmir said: “The disease has affected one village Razloo in Qazigund block. We have treated 97 patients free of cost sofar and five out of them are admitted. Rest are fine and they have been sent to their homes. We have deputed divisional and district response teams to the affected village and all the patents have been managed within the district.”

Dr Rehman informed that these Patients have symptoms of diaharroea, high grade fever and dysentery. “The locals in this village have been advised to consume boiled water and avoid unhygienic living condition,” director health services Kashmir added. He said the situation is under control and there is no need to be panic as none of the patients is serious. (KNS)

Srinagar: The death of a teenage girl sparked massive protests in north Kashmir’s Kunzar town on Saturday, witnesses and police said. Police used tear gas shells in the town after people came on roads and raised anti-government slogans. Locals claim that the girl, who had come to her relative’s home in Aatipora, was raped by an Indian Reserve Police (IRP) constable posted as a guard for the minority community in the area. Officials said the deceased, a resident of Kunzar-Tangmarg, had gone to the house of Farooq Ahmad Dar in Aadipora, Tangmarg, who is her relative, late last night.  The IRP constable was caught by the locals in an ‘indecent position’ with her, a police official told GNS .He said locals handed over the constable to police on Friday and he is under detention. “The constable had an altercation with Farooq Ahmad Dar,” he said. A senior police official, while confirming the arrest of the IRP constable identified him as Zahoor Hussain of 13th Bn posted at Baiwah Kunzar, said an FIR no 24/2014 under sections 306, 376, 457 and 511 has been lodged. But locals say the constable had barged into the girl’s residence and raped her. Police, however, out rightly refute the claim. Locals say after the teen was allegedly raped she developed medical complications and was shifted to a local hospital where she died. But police sources told GNS that the girl had not developed medical complication, but consumed poison after the arrest of the constable. A police spokesman in a statement said: “A girl (name with held) had reportedly called the said constable to Aadipora. The girl objected to the altercation between her brother-in-law Farooq Ahmad Dar and Zahoor Hussain. The said girl reportedly consumed some poison and was rushed to a nearby hospital where from she was shifted to SMHS Hospital Srinagar for treatment. The doctors declared her brought dead. “ Locals on Saturday brought her body to Kunzar and blocked Srinagar-Gulmarg road and pelt stones on police. The post mortem of the deceased was conducted in presence of senior officials. (GNS)

Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir People’s league Chairman, Mukhtar Ahmad Waza today condemned the continuous harassment to its party activists in Kulgam district of South Kashmir and said that police is trying to implicate party activists in baseless cases.

Waza in a statement denounced harassing of party activists in Kulgam and Yaripora area and said that police action is intolerable and unacceptable.

According to a statement issued to KNS, accompanied by party leaders and activists including Nazir Ahmad Khan, District president Kulgam, Reyaz Ahmad, Ahmadullah and Zahid Zahoor, Waza visited several workers today in Kulgam district. On the occasion  he said that puppet authorities and ruling mainstream parties have converted the whole state into a police state and armed forces have lashed a reign of terror just to curb the ongoing peaceful freedom movement in the state.

He said that police besides harassing the party activists, was demanding money from them and if they failed to pay they are being threatened to implicate in false cases. Waza appealed international community to take a strong of the police atrocities in Kashmir.

He said that India must shun the dual standards and must stop the armed forces atrocities in the valley. Waza said that hundreds of youths and pro-freedom leaders continue to remain in police detention, arrested before election drama, while as thousands continue to lash in inside and outside state jails.

Waza said boycotting sham polls is the right of oppressed Kashmir people but now India seems to have gone frustrated and is now using its military might to crush the freedom sentiment among the people of state by the policy of oppression and suppression. However, he said that neither People’s league has succumbed before Indian oppression nor it will.

He urged upon workers to continue working for ongoing freedom movement and impressed upon them to make the 21st May Eid Gah Chalo Program a success. (KNS)

Srinagar: One prisoner Mushtaq Ahmad Gilkar son of Ali Mohammad Gilkar resident of Kolipora, jurisdiction of Police Station Khanyar who was lodged in central jail arrested under FIR number 23/09 under section 8/20 NDPS of Police Station Rainawari, fell ill. According to a police handout issued to KNS, he was rushed to Rainawari Hospital where from he died. Police has taken cognizance of the matter. (KNS)

They will be released after assessing situation: Police

Srinagar: The state government is yet to take a decision on the release of many separatist leaders who were detained in connection with the Lok Sabah elections. “Even the result of Lok Sabha election has come out but the senior separatist leaders like Shabir Ahmad Shah, Nayeem Ahmad Khan, Mushtaq-ul-Islam, and others are still behind bars,” said a spokesman of Huriyat Conference Jammu and Kashmir told KNS.

According to a spokesman of the Hurriyat (G) Syed Ali Geelani, Mohammad Ashraf Sehraie and Dr Ghulam  Ahmad Ganaie are under house confinement while as its other leaders like Ayaz Akbar, Abdul Ghani Bhat, Ameer Hamza, Zubair Ahmad Turray, Ghulam Ahmad Banday, Bashir Ahmad Saleiah, Ghulam Ahmad Bangay and Abdul Nasir are behind bars. “There are over 100 Hurriyat (G) workers and leader who are still behind bars and some are still being detained,” said a spokesman of the Hurriyat (G).  He said that these arrests are being made as vengeance against Hurriyat Conference.

The spokesmen of the Hurriyat (G) and HCJK said that the authorities are taking revenge against their cadres just because they ha propagated poll boycott. “This police action has no justification at all. On one side they say that boycott is peoples’ right and on the other they put our leaders and workers behind bars for boycotting elections,” said the spokesman of HCJK. A senior police officer when contacted told KNS: “The police said it is not interested to keep anybody behind bars unless the situation demands so. We have released many people and many other would be released after reviewing the situation.” (KNS)

Srinagar: In the backdrop of the over whelming win of BJP in the recently held lok-sabha elections, the President of Awami National Conference (ANC), Begum Khalida Shah has said the coming to power of BJP is of utmost importance with respect to the bilateral relations between India and Pakistan, and there is high hope that the long standing Kashmir imbroglio will see some positive initiatives as well as developments during the phase and concrete steps would be taken for the ultimate resolution of the issue in consonance with the aspirations of the people of Kashmir.

According to a statement issued to KNS,  Congratulating Narendra Modi for his success and would be Prime Minister ship, Begum Shah expressed her felicitations and maintained that the good wishes sent to Modi by Pakistan Prime Minister Mian Nawaz  Sharif including the invitation to visit Pakistan indicates towards the positive trend that both the nations want cordial relations with each other and Mr Modi would play the role of a positive agent of change towards the same.

Begum Khalida Shah further maintained that the people of Kashmir as well as the people of the country at large were hopeful that under the ace leadership of Narendra Modi the country would see a crusade against corruption, nepotism, mis governance, etc. and see an era of development, progress and prosperity. Begum Shah further said that hopes are high on Modi that the coming regime would be one wherein the unemployed youth of the state and the country at large would get respite from this plague of unemployment and see a revolutionary wind towards better futures, stable careers, settlement and prosperity.(KNS)

‘Kashmir’s disputed status will not change by change of guard’

Srinagar: Terming the sacrifices rendered by the people of Kashmir for the right of self-determination as the greatest asset, Hurriyat Conference Jammu Kashmir in its statement has said that it is due to these sacrifices that Kashmir issue gained a new direction and woke the nation from its slumber. The amalgam said that they would continue to offer the sacrifices until the Kashmir issue is not resolved as per its historical background and according to the mission of martyrs.

According to a statement issued to KNS, paying glowing tributes to Shaheed-e-Millat Mirwaiz Molvi Farooq, Shaheed-e-Hurriyat Khwaja Abdul Gani Lone, Hawal martyrs and other martyrs, the Hurriyat spokesperson said these martyrs sacrificed their lives for the freedom movement against Indian forcible occupation not for any material gains. “Our freedom movement has reached such level where we are obliged to safeguard the sacrifices rendered by our martyrs,” the spokesperson said and condemned the arrest spree by police and forces across the valley.

The spokesperson while commenting on the change of regime in India said: “It does not matter to us whether there would be a secular or Hindu nationalist regime in India as the disputed status of Jammu and Kashmir remains the same. Those who desire for the solution to this humanitarian issue are the well wishers of this nation.”

He said if Indian political leadership shuns its prejudicial approach with regards to Kashmir issue, all the fear and concern that has gripped the people across the whole south Asia due to uncertainty and vice versa, will fade out.

“Due to stubbornness of India and its ‘time consuming’ policy with regards to Kashmir issue, neither the relation between Islamabad and New Delhi has improved nor has it helped resolve the Kashmir issue in any way,” he said, adding that it is only and only die to the stubbornness of India that Kashmir issue continues to remain unresolved. He said though the regime has changed in India and people have voted there for ideological change, the oppressed people of Kashmir have no hopes of any relief from such change. “If the people of Kashmir will be allowed to express their political and other rights, they will not waste a moment in declaring the current change of India as a positive step. Not a single regime has obliterated the spirit freedom movement from the hearts of Kashmiris nor could they change the historical reality of this issue. The need of the hour is to express the political maturity and take initiatives to resolve the long pending issue of Kashmir so that peace can prevail in the whole subcontinent,” the spokesperson added. (KNS)