Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has separated from Payal Nath, his wife of 17 years and mother of his two sons Zahir and Zamir. It was officially announced after the vicious gossip made to the front pages in Delhi newspapers.
He gave no reasons and not many details about the split but felt more concerned over the “stories about his remarriage” which, he said, is “completely false, concocted, unfounded, untrue and deeply hurtful to all concerned”. Married in September 1994, Payal and their two children were living in Delhi for some time in recent past during which there was no contact. Reports suggest the separation was by mutual consent and the two sides had put out their papers in a Delhi court on August 30. The split came after all the efforts of any rapprochement failed.
NASEEM BAGH : Dr Subhan Khan Pathan, Vice President, Indian Society of Geometrics and Group Director, Space Application Centre, ISRO Ahmedabad, died of cardiac arrest while delivering a lecture in the university of Kashmir’s Ghandi Bhawan. The 57-year old scientist of repute was participating in a Regional Conference on Geometrics for Good Governance. University officials flew him to SKIMS where he was declared brought dead.
TORONTO : A Bollywood masala film Mausam, based on romance between a Punjabi Hindu Indian Air Force pilot (Shahid Kapoor) and a Kashmiri Muslim refugee girl (Sonam Kapoor), was withdrawn from the Toronto International Film Festival line-up because it lacked mandatory approvals from Indian authorities. The romantic story tells the story of how the two love birds are prevented by a whole set of reasons to live together. IAF had permitted producers to shoot at Gwalior airbase but they had to seek final approvals from IAF before seeking censor board certification, something that have skipped. IAF seeks certain dramatic aerial sequences to be edited out.
JAMMU : In a historic first in J&K, a ‘lady doctor’, Dr Monika Baghat was arrested under the J&K Preconception and Prenatal Sex Selection/ Determination (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 2002 and an ultrasound centre was sealed in R S Pura. They were offering services to the couples who wanted to abort foetuses. Police is investigating if the lady is actually a doctor or not. She was helped by some of the state-run health system officials who have been placed under suspension as well. Sex determination is banned by law and abortions can be carried out only by legally permitted centres for valid reasons.
RAMBAGH : Journalist David Devidas who has written a book on Kashmir was (September 5) allegedly arrested, abused literally dragged to the police station for “obstructing” the movement of a judge’s cavalcade. A case has also been slapped on him. Devidas has written in detail to the chief minister and also to the Chief Justice of India offering details of his ordeal. He is in Kashmir researching for another book and has written to the chief justice that he fears for his life. Devidas’s ordeal started after a security escort of a judge hit his car from back and then accused him of obstructing the movement. In the follow up, he was accused of attacking police and carrying a pistol!
J&K BANK : State’s only listed company donated a laptop to a physically challenged person Mohammad Sultan Rather (Wussan, Tangmarg). This, President Rauf Ahmad Bhat said, is part of the bank’s CSR activity. A victim of a congenital Grebe syndrome and lacking upper limbs, Rather has fought the crisis courageously and is currently purusing his master’s in education at the University of Kashmir. Rather’s struggle was profiled by Kashmir Life recently.
