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New video of three-year-old boy shows him describing the sequence of events leading to the killing of his grandfather

Mental health professionals in the Kashmir valley have warned of an “epidemic of psychological disorders” among the children exposed to “rare, complex, ongoing trauma” due to the prolonged conflict in the region, as a new video of a three-year-old boy showed him describing the sequence of events leading to the killing of his grandfather before his eyes in north Kashmir’s Sopore on Wednesday.

The Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences-Kashmir (IMHANS-K) on Thursday began monitoring the behaviour of the three-year-old child from Srinagar’s HMT area, a process that is expected to continue for the next six weeks.

“We will monitor how the child will heal from the traumatic experience. Any disturbing behavioural pattern would require management by mental health experts,” Dr. Syed Karrar, paediatric neuropsychiatrist at IMHANS-K, told The Hindu.

‘Highly disturbing’

Describing the images, where the child was seen sitting on the body of his grandfather, and the latest video of the incident “highly disturbing”, Dr. Karrar said, “Children at this age may not have an idea of the permanence of death but they find it hard to extract the trauma, unlike older children and adults. In fact, the traumatic experience may manifest differently.”

What worries mental health professionals in the Valley is the danger of the affected children reliving these experiences for many years.

“Early childhood (0-6 years) traumatic experiences have immense impact on psychological well-being. They have more potential to impact the development of brain structures,” Dr. Karrar said.

Such images may have already become a cue for conflict-affected children to experience “vicarious trauma”, he added.

Children in south Kashmir

IMHANS-K has already seen around 200 mental trauma cases among children in the past 12 months, which were marred by frequent crackdowns by security forces, encounters and funerals in J&K.

Of the 200 cases, according to the IMHANS-K data, 65-70% of the affected children were from south Kashmir and around 80% belonged to pre-adolescence and early adolescence age groups.

“Many children from south Kashmir talked about the presence of security personnel as a trigger for anxiety, irritability and anger. Many were having flashbacks, inducing episodic sightings of trauma, fright, scary dreams and sleep disorders,” Dr. Karrar said.

Doctors said children in south Kashmir cannot be categorised as “classic post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)”. “In Kashmir’s case, trauma is an ongoing experience, from one episode to another. It’s a complex trauma peculiar to Kashmir, unlike the clinical acute or chronic trauma,” he added.

There were chances of “maladaptive coping” among such children. “The developmental trajectory of such children gets affected as a consequence, and it may lead to depression and drug abuse,” doctors at IMHANS-K warned.

With inputs from The Hindu

PTI

New Delhi: The NIA arrested one more accused on Thursday in connection with last year’s Pulwama attack, in which 40 CRPF personnel were killed, an official said.

Mohammad Iqbal Rather (25), a resident of Jammu and Kashmir’s Budgam, had allegedly facilitated the movement of Muhammad Umar Farooq — a member of the Pakistan-based terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and a key conspirator in the case — after he infiltrated into the Indian territory in the Jammu region in April, 2018, a spokesperson of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) said.

Farooq, along with others, had assembled the improvised explosive device (IED) used in the Pulwama attack, he added.

Rather was in judicial custody since September, 2018 in another JeM-related case being probed by the premier investigation agency, the official said.

He was produced by the jail authorities before a Special NIA Court in Jammu on Thursday and was sent to a seven-day custody of the agency for interrogation, he added.

Srinagar: BJP national general secretary Ram Madhav is likely to visit Kashmir this week and to meet party leaders, works and other delegations.

Sources told news agency Kashmir Indepth News Service (KINS) that BJP workers are making arrangements to apprise him about party affairs and ground situation in Kashmir.

“He will be on a two day visit to Kashmir this week,” confirmed a BJP leader.

However, one of the party leaders, who wished not to be named, said that his visit would be personal and not an official.

On 21 October 2019, in his first visit to Kashmir, after abrogation of special status granted to Jammu and Kashmir, Madhav said he had urged all citizens of the country to plan their next honeymoon, holiday or yatra in the Valley.

On 20 November 2019, Madhav said he was in favour of the resumption of political engagement in the Union Territory “sooner than later”.

Saying that “the sky’s the limit” when it comes to demands from various quarters on the issue of Jammu & Kashmir, he emphasised that the demands should be within the ambit of the Constitution.

“I am personally in favour of, at least now that almost 100 days have passed since the decision was taken, some kind of a political engagement to start in the Valley,” he had said at an event in Delhi.(KINS)

Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir on Thursday reported ten deaths due to novel coronavirus, taking the fatality count due to the covid-19 in J&K to 117. Nine of these casualties took place in Kashmir Valley and one in Jammu division which was actually confirmed two days after a 63-year-old from Doda died in an army hospital.

Regarding those reported from the Valley, five were reported at SKIMS Soura, three at SMHS hospital and one at CD hospital, one of the exclusive facilities for the covid-19 management here.

Talking to GNS, Professor Farooq Jan, Medical Superintendent SKIMS Soura, a 75-year-old man from Kawoosa area of Budgam district died at the hospital around 7:25 p.m. this evening, five days after he was admitted.

“The patient was diagnosed MND with CAP and he died due to cardiopulmonary arrest,” he said.

Earlier, a said 65-year-old man from Nadigam Shopian, who was admitted in Infectious Disease Block of the hospital on July 1 as a case of Coronary Artery Disease with bilateral Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) with Type-1 Respiratory Failure, passed away at 4.45 p.m, he said.

Prior to him, Professor Jan said that a 65-year-old resident of Tarigam Kulgam, who was admitted on June 23, died at the hospital. “He was referred from GMC Anantnag in view of B/L CAP with ARDS. The patient was Covid positive and died at 2:30 p.m.,” he said.

Earlier, 55-year-old and 65-year-old men from Kulgam and Baramulla districts respectively died at the tertiary care hospital.

He said that the quinquagenarian from Yaripora area of Kulgam was admitted on June 22 and died 12:10 a.m.

“He was known case of hypertension with (type-2 diabetes) with multifocal Encephalopathy (brain disease),” he said.

Another patient—the sexagenarian from Baramulla’s Sopore town also died ten days after admission to the hospital.

“The patient was hypertensive, T2DM (type-2 diabetes) with Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) and he had sudden cardiopulmonary arrest at 3:05 a.m.” Professor Jan said.

Meanwhile, a resident of Habba Kadal area of Srinagar, a 60-year-old man died at CD hospital. Dr Salim Tak, hospital’s Medical Superintendent, told GNS that man was admitted on June 29.

“He was diabetic, hypertensive and was suffering pneumonia and other ailments,” he added.
Dr Nazir Choudhary, Medical Superintendent SMHS hospital, told GNS that a 65-year-old man with “bilateral pneumonia” from Kulgam district died this afternoon. “His sample was taken as soon as he was admitted to the hospital yesterday and it came out to be positive for the virus,” he said.

Earlier, Dr Choudhary said, a 75-year-old man from Wadwan Budgam district and a 65-year-old from Batamaloo Srinagar with underlying ailments including hypertension and bilateral pneumonia died at the hospital. “The woman was also suffering from Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Both of them were admitted yesterday (Wednesday),” he added.

Meanwhile sources told GNS that a swab sample reports of a 63-year-old man from Doda returned positive for the virus. He was actually admitted to GMC Jammu on June 20 and later shifted to Udhampur army hospital. Having suffered the brain hemorrhage, the sexagenarian died on June 30, the sources added.

With the deaths, 117 people so far have succumbed to the virus in J&K— 103 from the Valley and 14 from Jammu division.

Srinagar district with 27 deaths has the highest fatalities followed by Baramulla (18), Kulgam (16), Shopian (13), Budgam (10), Anantnag (9), Jammu(8), Kupwara (6), Pulwama (four), Doda (2) while one death each has been reported from Bandipora, Poonch, Udhampur, Rajouri and Kathua. (GNS)

Pak PM’s accusations result in US, Germany delaying Karachi statement by day; China manages to avoid mention of WHO

India’s partner countries in the UN Security Council stymied an attempt to mention India in a condolence message about the Karachi stock exchange, but were unable to place China and WHO at the centre of a resolution calling for a ceasefire in some civil wars which will not be applicable to counter-insurgency operations in Kashmir and Central India.

The two developments–a resolution on ceasefire/ WHO and a statement on Karachi–have seen a tug of war between the US and other countries.

Germany’s UN Ambassador Christoph Heusgen, the UNSC president for July, said the UNSC’s ceasefire resolution was “a sign for hope for all people currently living in conflict zones around the world”. It does not apply to military operations against Al-Qaida, ISIS and other UN-proscribed terror outfits such as Lashkar-eTaiba and Jaish-e-Mohamed.

The diplomatic support by the US to India, which essentially amounted to a one-day delay in issuing the statement on Karachi, follows a string of statements from Washington in India’s tensions with China.

Both US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have stated that they see China as the aggressor on the Line of Actual Control (LAC). Pompeo has also backed India’s banning of 59 apps that follows the US blocking Huawei and ZTE from availing of universal social obligation funds. For the first time, the White House and the State Department have pointedly included Sino-Indian border tensions in their checklist of aggressive Beijing behavior at a number of vectors around China’s periphery.

This is the second time partner countries from the West have stood by India. After the Pulwama attack, Pakistan was not directly blamed but there was specific mention of Jaish-e-Mohamed in the UNSC statement condemning the attack. This indirectly indicted Pakistan, which has sheltered the terror group’s top leadership.

The UNSC resolution proposed by China on the Karachi terror attacks was in fact muddied by Islamabad itself when Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi followed by Prime Minister Imran Khan pointed accusing fingers across the border. The political nature of the accusations led India’s partners US, followed by Germany, to seek a delay in using the statement to allow things to cool. South Block has interpreted this as a victory.

The resolution on the Karachi attack did not indict any organisation though Pakistan has claimed that Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) is responsible. But it did condemn the attack in the “strongest terms” and as in the case of the Pulwama attack, it “underlined the need to hold perpetrators, organisers, financiers and sponsors of these reprehensible acts of terrorism accountable and bring them to justice”.

In line with the accusations made by Pakistan PM and Foreign Minister, Pakistan is also trying to get three Indians who were working in projects in Afghanistan listed as international terrorists. The attempt to list one of them fell flat after no concrete evidence was submitted to the sanctions committee and that of other three could also meet a similar fate. India on the other hand not only got Jaish-e-Mohamed banned but also persuaded the UNSC to list its chief Masood Azhar as an international terrorist.

A more bitter battle to name the WHO in the UNSC’s first resolution on Covid, however, was unsuccessful. Led by the US since early April, its allies in UNSC did not have enough firepower to hold the WHO accountable. Such wording would have indirectly indicted China since Trump was accusing WHO of parroting Beijing’s line. Co-sponsors France and Tunisia along with Russia managed to avoid the word “transparency” or “WHO” as was sought by the US.

With inputs from The Tribune

Pakistan violates ceasefire in J&K’s Poonch district

IANS

Jammu: Pakistan again violated ceasefire on Thursday on the line of control (LoC) in two sectors in J&K”s Poonch district by using automatic gunfire and mortar shelling.

Colonel Devender Anand said, “At about 9.30 a.m. today Pakistan initiated unprovoked ceasefire violation by firing with small arms and shelling with mortars along the LoC in Shahpur and Kirni sectors of Poonch district.

“Indian army retaliated befittingly”.

For over a month, Pakistan has been violating the bilateral ceasefire on the LoC in J&K with impunity.

LoC tensions have been rising in the backdrop of heightened Sino-India tensions on the line of actual control (LAC) in Eastern Ladakh.

–IANS