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  • Hope Singh will not put his foot in his mouth again: Mehbooba

    SRINAGAR: Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) President Mehbooba Mufti Wednesday lambasted the MoS in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) Jitendra Singh for his comments on Article 370. She said his comments have the potential to divide the state on communal lines.

    “We condemn the statement by Singh. His statement has the potential to divide the state,” she said while addressing a press conference.

    She expressed hope that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will intervene in the matter and any such statements in the future will be avoided. “They should try to strengthen Article 370. I hope this minister will not put his foot in his mouth again and he will concentrate on his work,” she said.

    She said that even in the past lot of efforts were made by many leaders to abolish the Article 370.

    “I hope this is the last time we are hearing about its abolition. With such statements, unfortunately, we are moving towards another partition and division,” Mehbooba said.

    The PDP chief noted that in the past many jurists and experts told leaders that Article 370 cannot be touched because it is the basis of the relationship of the state with the rest of the country.

    “If you try to fiddle with it, that means you will have to re-negotiate a new relationship with the people of Jammu and Kashmir. You will have to ask the people about their decision then. That means you are giving a choice to the people of J&K that they have to re-negotiate about their future. You are giving them a choice, a chance. Is BJP ready to do that? I do not think so,” she said.

    Mehbooba said if Article 370 has to be discussed, the BJP should figure out ways to strengthen it.

    “They (BJP) should discuss how to give more administrative powers, more share in the civil services, compensation on water resources, our own elected governor,” she said.

    The PDP president expressed hope that the Prime Minister will intervene in the matter and assure the people of the state that no power can play with their dignity and honour.

    “If BJP wants to bring the people of the state closer, they should talk about strengthening Article 370 rather than abolishing it.

    “I hope the PM intervenes and reassures the people of the state that no power on this Earth is going to play with the dignity and the honour of the people of the state. He should address the internal as well as the external dimensions of the Kashmir issue and the people of the state should be able to live with dignity in the country,” she said.

  • Asiya-Neelofar commemoration Reopen all rape, molestation cases since 90: IFJHR to SHRC

    Srinagar: Taking a dig at successive governments for their failure to provide justice to the victims of rapes and molestations that took place in valley hitherto, the International Forum for Justice and Human Rights -JK (IFJHR-JK) in its statement has urged the State Human Rights Commission to reopen all the cases of rape and molestation committed allegedly by security forces since 1990.

    “Not only should the selected cases like Kunan Poshpora and Shopian double rape and murderbe reopened but the SHRC should reinvestigate all the similar cases that have been put on backburner for more than last two decades,” IFJHR-JK in its statement has said.

    Chairman of the forum, Muhammad Ahsan Untoo said that not a single force personnel accused of such crime has been brought to justice so far. “Thousands of families of rape and molestation victims, from nine-year-old to 60-year-old, are awaiting justice. The government has done nothing in this regard and all such cases are either prolonged or have been put on hold.”

    There have been reports of rape and molestation cases like Badasgam Village where BSF personnel allegedly opened indiscriminate firing upon a marriage party who were travelling in a bus in south Kashmir’s Islamabad district in which a bridegroom and other eight persons received bullet injuries and the bride and her chamber-maid were gang raped by the personnel. The incident happened on the intervening night of May17 and 18, 1990.

    Another similar case is of south Kashmir’s Chak-e-Saidapora of Shopian where on the intervening night of October 10 and 11, 1992, the forces entered into the village under the pretext of search operations directed the male members to assemble at one place for search. The forces then allegedly raped an 11-year-old girl and five other women. The medical reports also corroborated the accusations.

    In Wadwan area of central Kashmir’s Budgam district, at least 14 women were allegedly gang raped by Army and paramilitary forces on the intervening night of June 25 and 26, 1990. One of the victims succumbed at SHMS hospital on July 11, 1990.

    On August 1, 1992, Indian forces allegedly sexually assaulted two British girls (sisters) namely Stevenson Jennet and Stevenson Joane on July 31, 1992. In this regard, an FIR number 168/92 under section 376/511 and 354 stands registered in police station MR Gunj, which is pending for investigation.

    In Hilal Bahi Village of south Kashmir’s Islamabad district, on December 5, 1991, the paramilitary forces cordoned off a number of villages and started indiscriminate firing due to which 20 persons were injured and out of them, five were seriously injured. The forces then allegedly entered into the houses of the locals and raped four married women including a six-month pregnant lady, who later reported the matter to district authorities, Islamabad. An FIR stands registered in the police station, Dooru, Islamabad, which is under investigation. The medical reports also had confirmed that the ladies were raped.

    The Human Rights Forum has demanded an impartial probe into all the incidents of rape cases and molestations. All the pending cases must be expedited so that the culprits be brought to book and justice may be done therein.

    Meanwhile, International Forum for Justice and Human Rights-JK will participate in peaceful sit-in, which is being organized in memory of Asiya-Neeloar in Shopian district of South Kashmir.

  • With hope and fear from Kashmir

    By Gowhar Geelani

    After Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif finally accepted Narendra Modi’s invitation to attend the latter’s oath-taking ceremony as the 15th Prime Minister of India, ordinary people, commentators, and politicians in Kashmir began deliberating upon the various pros and cons of the situation, and discussing the future of possible talks on all contentious issues, including Kashmir.

    There is a mix of apprehension and hope in Kashmir.

    Some key Kashmir observers believe that Modi’s ascendancy to power could prove detrimental to the “interest” of Muslims in mainland India, but has several “positives” for Kashmiri resistance against the status quo.

    Some politicians are also pinning their hopes on Modi that he would carry forward the legacy of former Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, while others insist on a wait-and-see policy.

    In the backdrop of the 2002 Gujarat pogrom and the image of Modi as one of the most aggressive leaders of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party [BJP], the fears and apprehensions of the people of Kashmir are not entirely unfounded.

    Also read: Engaging Modi

    However, after his meteoric rise and landslide victory in the recently held parliamentary elections, Modi has also shown some positive signs and appears to be a different man than the one people witnessed during his belligerent campaigning.

    Yasin Malik, chief of the pro-freedom Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), is of the view that it would be hasty to pin hopes on a man who has won a huge mandate as an advocate of the Hindu extremist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) ideology.

    “It is too premature to attach expectations or conclude anything substantial as of now. Only time will tell whether Narendra Modi makes a u-turn on his core political ideology and sets on a peace mission with the Pakistani and Kashmiri leaderships to resolve the dispute,” Malik said.

    Contrary to the JKLF chief’s opinion, the pro-India Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) in Jammu & Kashmir perceives Modi’s invitation to Sharif and their meeting as “big moment for diplomacy”.

    As Kashmiris, we look up to every small opportunity and try catching every single straw. Narendra Modi’s invitation to Nawaz Sharif is definitely a big moment for diplomacy and politics.

    “This marks a new beginning of a peace process initiated by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, which, to some extent, was consolidated during the United Progressive Alliance (UPA-I) government led by the Congress. But sadly, the Kashmir-centric Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) and decisions which were already taken by the two foreign ministers were not implemented by the UPA-II regime,” said PDP’s chief spokesperson Naeem Akhtar.

    Akhtar was referring to the CBMs such as those of extending cross-LoC travel beyond divided families, increasing the frequency of trans-Kashmir bus service, opening of new routes, and strengthening border trade, etc.

    The Pakistani premier’s attendance will be a first in the chequered history of the South Asian neighbours, who have fought three wars and a mini-war in Kargil since their independence in 1947 and remain bitterly divided over the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir.

    Besides Sharif, Modi had extended invitations to other neighbouring heads of government from the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) to his swearing-in ceremony.

    International relations and global politics experts are keenly observing all moves made by the India and Pakistan leaderships and their future policy on Kashmir.

    Also read: Do Sharif, Modi have a fish to fry?

    Dr Dibyesh Anand, head of Politics and International Relations department at London’s Westminster University, opines that resolving Kashmir would mean treating Kashmiris as political actors.

    “But there is nothing to suggest that Narendra Modi who has benefited from the rise of rabid Hindu nationalism in India, will see Kashmiris as people with rights,” Dr Anand wrote in his e-mailed response.

    “Both leaders (Modi and Sharif) will focus on consolidating their positions within their own countries through neo-liberal economic growth and out-manoeuvring their political opponents without care for democratic principles of minority rights,” he said, adding:

    There is nothing to indicate that they have the will, vision or political expediency to resolve the dispute over Kashmir. Trade, and not Kashmir, will be their primary agenda.

    It is also interesting that Nawaz Sharif has thus far not indicated to meet any Kashmiri resistance leaders during his visit to the Indian capital. This is being seen as a break from earlier traditions set by the Pakistani High Commission in New Delhi, which would extend invitations to the key Kashmiri leadership for talks whenever any top dignitaries from Pakistan, prime ministers and presidents included, visited India.

    Almost all top Kashmiri leaders have denied receiving any invitation from the Pakistani High Commission this time around.

    Kashmir’s head priest and chairman of a faction of Hurriyat Conference Mirwaiz Umar has supported the Nawaz-Narendra meeting and has urged both leaders to move boldly towards a final settlement of the dispute.

    On the other hand, Kashmir’s popular octogenarian resistance leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani has not attached any hopes with the event. Moreover, hardline Pakistan based Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed has criticised Sharif for meeting Modi and has termed his move as a “betrayal” against the cause of Kashmiris.

    There are, however, some Kashmiri voices that remain optimistic.

    “Pakistan is engaging with Hindu India for the first time. By inviting the Saarc heads, Narendra Modi has indicated that he sees the forum as a window of opportunity and hope. There is a chance of resolving disputes, but how Modi moves forward remains to be seen,” said Peerzada Ashiq, a Kashmiri journalist who works for India’s leading daily Hindustan Times.

    Also read: A softening veto

    In his latest column, Dr Sheikh Showkat Hussain — expert in international law and associate professor at the Central University of Kashmir — wrote:

    “‘Modi’-ficaton of India has several positives for Kashmir resistance. Kashmiris, now, do not need to convince the world that they are subjugated under a fascist set-up because the notoriety of Modi and the Hindutva forces is too obvious to need any introduction.”

    Dr. Sheikh further articulated that in the past, governments in New Delhi would project coalition politics as one of the main impediments towards the resolution of Kashmir; but,

    Modi doesn’t have any baggage of coalition compulsions to use them as a pretext for deferring the resolution of Kashmir.

    The flip side, however, is the background of Modi and that makes many wary and suspicious of him.

    A young Kashmiri engineer, Zahid Umar, expressed his view on a social networking site in a rather interesting manner:

    “The Prime Ministers of two neighbouring countries are meeting and I don’t know why we, Kashmiris, are attaching so much hope, and speculating on a private affair between our two neighbours.”

  • Universe Reached Peak Heat 11 Billion Years Ago

    Melbourne: Astronomers have identified the point where the Universe moved from heating to cooling – 11 billion years ago, when the temperature was an astonishing 13,000 degrees Celsius, hotter than the surface of the Sun.

    An international team, led by researchers from Swinburne University of Technology, found evidence that the Universe broke its rising ‘fever’ about 11 billion years ago.

    They measured the temperature of the Universe when it was 3 to 4 billion years old by studying the gas in between galaxies – the intergalactic medium.

    During these early years of the Universe’s development, many extremely active galaxies were ‘switching on’ for the first time and heating their surroundings.

    “However, 11 billion years ago, this fever seems to have broken and the Universe began cooling down again,” lead researcher Elisa Boera, a PhD student from Swinburne’s Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, said.

    “The intergalactic medium is an excellent recorder of the Universe’s history. It retains memory of the big events that affected its properties, such as temperature and composition, during its different phases of evolution,” said Boera.

    In the study, Boera collected the bluest light that Earth’s atmosphere transmits – harsh ultraviolet (UV) light from 60 quasars.

    This UV light comes from slightly later in the Universe’s development, allowing the new temperature measurement.

    “The quasar light suggests that the Universe had cooled by about 1000 degrees C within 1 billion years after reaching its maximum of 13,000 degrees,” Boera said.

    “This cooling trend has probably continued to the present day,” said Boera.

    “We think the answer is helium,” co-author of the study, Swinburne Associate Professor Michael Murphy said.

    “Fourteen per cent of the intergalactic gas is helium and, 12 billion years ago, it was absorbing the intense radiation from active galaxies, losing electrons in the process,” Murphy said.

    “The electrons whizz around, heating up the gas. It’s similar to the greenhouse effect on Earth: Carbon dioxide gas absorbs infrared radiation and heats our atmosphere.

    “Once all the helium was ionised, the radiation would simply pass through the gas without heating it. Then, as the Universe expands the gas cools down, just like the cold gas sprayed from an aerosol can – it quickly cools as it expands out of the can,” said Murphy.

    The study has been published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

  • Two militants killed in south Kashmir encounter

    Srinagar: Two militants died on Sunday in an encounter with the Jammu and Kashmir Police and security forces in Kulgam district of south Kashmir.

    Deputy Inspector General of Police South Kashmir Vijay Kumar told that the Police, Army and Central Reserve Police Force launched a cordon-and-search operation on receiving specific information about the presence of two local militants at their hideout at Nowpora, Frisal, 60 km from Srinagar. He said that both the militants died in the gunfight and their bodies were being recovered from the debris of their hideout which was destroyed.

    The DIG, who supervised the operation with senior officials of the Army’s Victor Force, said that both the militants were reportedly the local cadre of Hizbul Mujahideen but their identification was still underway.

    Another police source said that the slain militants were believed to have shot dead a Panchayat member at Wanpoh, Kulgam, earlier this month.

  • Geelani calls for shutdown in Shopian on May 30

    Srinagar: Hurriyat (G) Syed Ali Geelani has called for shutdown in Shopian on the 5th death anniversary of Asiya and Nelofar.

  • Nawaz to break tradition, not to meet separatists

    Srinagar: Against the traditions, Pakistan Prime minister Nawaz Sharief is not meeting Kashmiri separatists in New Delhi during his 24 hour stay in India.

    Nawaz will reach New Delhi on Monday afternoon to attend the swearing in ceremony of Narindra Modi.

    Nawaz will spend the night in India and leave for Islamabad on Tuesday.

    “We have not received any communiqué from the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi so far,” Hurriyat (G) spokesman, Ayaz Akbar told.

    It has been a tradition of every Pakistani leader to interact with the separatist leaders on their New Delhi visits.

    Sources said that none of the separatist leaders has been sent out any invitation so far for any meeting with Nawaz.

    “Maybe, Nawaz does not want to create bad ambiance with Modi in his their first meeting,” sources said.

    Meeting between Pakistani visiting leaders and the separatists always created sharp reaction in India, particularly from the BJP, which is now the ruling party.

    Modi will have bilateral talks with Nawaz at one-to-one level as also with delegations on Tuesday morning.

  • Pakistan frees 59 Indian prisoners

    Pakistan Sunday released 59 Indian prisoners as a goodwill gesture ahead of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s visit to NewDelhi to attend the swearing-in ceremony of Indian Prime Minister-elect Narendra Modi, officials said.

    The Indian prisoners, mostly fishermen, were freed from a jail in the port city of Karachi. They will be handed over to the Indian authorities at Wagah border Monday, the officials said.

    The fishermen were arrested for illegally entering Pakistani waters and fishing, Xinhua reported.

    Pakistan and India routinely arrest fishermen from entering each other’s waters for fishing. They enter other’s waters as there is no determination of maritime boundaries.

    Freed Indian prisoners told reporters outside the Karachi’s Malir jail that they are happy at their release. They also said they were treated well and were not subjected to torture.

    Modi invited heads of all the member states of South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (SAARC) for his swearing-in ceremony. The invitation to Sharif was attached great importance in view of tense ties between the two neighbours.

  • ‘I Have Lost 11 Years of My Life,’ Says Man Acquitted in Akshardham Terror Attack Case

    Ahmedabad: Mohammad Saleem, 45, has spent the last 11 years of his life being labelled a ‘terrorist’ by some officials of the Gujarat police, who allegedly falsely accused him of being involved in the 2002 Akshardham terror attack case.

    On May 16 this year, the Supreme Court acquitted all the six accused in the case – three of them had earlier been sentenced to death — and slammed the Gujarat police for its shoddy investigation. 

    Saleem, a tailor, had just returned from Saudi Arabia in August 2003, when sleuths from the Ahmedabad Crime Branch picked him up, alleging he had furnished ‘fake’ details in his passport application. 

    He was then allegedly asked to choose which terror case he would be implicated in.

    “I was told to choose between Godhra (train burning case), Haren Pandya (murder) case or the Akshardham case. I pleaded to them that I had been out of India for 13 years, why should I own up to something that I was not involved in.” he recounted.

    In 2006, a POTA court sentenced Saleem to life imprisonment.

    Three other accused — Mufti Abdul Qayuum, Adam Ajmeri and Chand Khan — were awarded the death sentence. 

    The other two accused, Abdul Miyan Qadri and Atlaf Hussain, were awarded a ten-year jail term amd five-year jail term respectively 

    While his mother fell ill right after his arrest, his 15-year-old son had to drop out from the English medium school he was studying in and join a municipal school.

    “My children got punished for no fault of theirs,” rues Saleem.

    Saleem’s brother Irfan was on the verge of completing his graduation. With the family’s only breadwinner behind bars, he was forced to give up his studies and drive an auto-rickshaw to earn a living.

    “I have spent most of my life in courtrooms, police stations and jail,” lamented Irfan.

    The lawyers of the acquitted men are now contemplating moving court against the policemen involved in the case, including D G Vanzara, the then chief of the Crime Branch.

    Vanzara has been behind bars for over seven years for his alleged involvement in a spate of encounter killings.

    But all Saleem and his family members want today is to get their lives — derailed after fighting false charges and injustice for years — back on track.

  • Structural not situational

    NC’s defeat has been caused by the degeneration of its political culture

    BACK TO BASICS HASEEB A DRABU

    The top brass of the National Conference ( NC) has reacted to the results of the Parliamentary elections with shock and surprise. This is strange. A blind man with his eyes covered could have seen this coming had he kept his ear to the ground. The wise men of the party have identified the style of campaigning, perceived complicity in Afzal Guru’s hanging and the resentment against the “ teenocide” of 2009- 10 as the proximate reasons for the defeat. As such, the electoral performance of NC is being seen as “ one time” reversal caused by a set of incidental or contingent events and circumstances. This is a wrong diagnosis arrived at by pursuing a flawed line of enquiry. The truth is far bitter and even far less comforting. Introspection, as being done by the party leadership, is welcome. However, if it results in measures like lifting the “ sms ban on pre- paid sim cards”, or withdrawal of a “ fiscally necessitated” job policy or using financial institutions to dole out ad hoc concessions, it points not only to a bankruptcy of ideas but also political poverty. These steps amount to, as the colloquial saying goes, “ yupis duin shupe ” ( using a winnow kee to hold a flood)! NC’s loss in the Parliamentary elections is not just an electoral debacle. Nor is it a situational poll reversal. Or merely the anti- incumbency of the last five years. It is all that and much more. It is not a debacle, which connotes suddenness, but degeneration which is long term structural and systemic. The consequence of it being diagnosed as sudden debacle is that the entire blame is being put at the doorstep of Omar Abdullah and his team of young advisors. True, Omar Abdullah lacks political gravitas and backroom guile. True also that his core team lacks political maturity and organizational method. But the fact is that the “ rot” in NC precedes them by two decades and more. The seeds for what has happened in the 2014 elections were sown long ago by Farooq Abdullah and his bandicoots. His obscene acts were laughed off as lighthearted banter, his perversities were interpreted as idiosyncrasies, his dishonesty was eulogized as expediency, his decadence was valued as indulgence, and his insincerity was condoned as flippancy. His cheap theatrics became political tactic of the NC. This gradually degenerated into institutionalized disrespect for the people of Kashmir, their sensibilities and their aspirations. Overtime this got concretized as dissent and eventually has now surfaced as anger and hate. It is with these traits and from those times that the seeds of NC’s disaster have been sown. Omar Abdullah understood this. And it didn’t escape any keen observer’s attention that in the initial two years of his term, he airbrushed his father and drew political lineage and sustenance directly from his grandfather. Sadly, he capitulated at the first signs of trouble. The first real election that NC fought under the family leadership was only in 1977. Sheikh Abdullah, on the rebound from the Congress back stabbing, led NC to a decent victory by securing a third of the total votes polled. During his period the vote share remained stable. Riding a sympathy vote from the death of Sheikh Abdullah, NC’s share of votes increased under Farooq Abdulla’s leadership increased to an all- time high of 46%. True to his personal nature and political acumen, he squandered the mandate rather quickly. Thereafter, in the Parliamentary elections of 1996, NC polled 26% votes. This dip was obviously due to an overhang of secessionism. In 1998, it recouped its share back to 33%. From then on it has been a downhill slide. NC vote share of 46% when Farooq took over the reins of NC in 1984 declined to 19 per cent when he handed over the reins to Omar Abdullah. On his part Omar Abdullah hasn’t been able to stem the slide. On the contrary he accelerated it. The significant aspect of the decline is that with every election NC’s share of votes has declined. As the accompanying graph shows, it was 36% in 1998 which declined to 29% in 1999 declining further to 28% before reaching 19% in 2009. Now it has plummeted to 11%. To add insult to injury, this 11% vote share includes some votes of its coalition partner! So, it may well turn out to be that NC’s own vote share is in single digits. This didn’t happen overnight. The same pattern is observed in the case of assembly election. NC’s share has dramatically come down from more than 47% in 1977, to less than 23% in 2008. If the current parliamentary shares are extrapolated, NC’s vote share will not be more than 14% in the elections at the end of the year. As an obvious consequence of this decline, the number of seats won by NC has come down. In the assembly from a high of 57 to a low of 28. Despite the fact that the number of seat in the assembly increased from 76 to 87, the number of seats won by NC has declined. In 1977, NC got a 62% of the seats, while in 2008 it managed to win only 32% of the seats. What this decline shows is the dwindling of its cadres and erosion in its support base. Earlier it had shrunk in the Jammu region and South Kashmir. This time around it has shriveled in North as well as Central Kashmir. In addition to its actions, what hastened the decline of its fortunes are two structural features; coalition and opposition. Historically, NC is used to neither! From 2002 to 2014, the decline in NC’s electoral strength is directly related to the emergence of a competing regional party. In the assembly, PDP got 9% in 2002 and increased its share to 15% in 2008. While PDP gained 6 percentage points in their vote share, NC lost 5 percentage points. In the last two assembly elections, the vote share of PDP has increased 66 per cent. Similarly, between the Parliamentary elections of 2004 and 2014, PDP’s share has gone up from 12% to 21%; an increase of 75%. This is a nightmarish situation for a political party like NC that has been weaned on getting 74 of 76 candidates elected unopposed! In this context, the planned efforts afoot to clean up of the mess in NC, welcome and long overdue as they are, can be evocatively summarized by the local saying, “ Doone galre wular pazun” ( To clean the Wular Lake with a walnut kernel)!