KUPWARA
Liyaqat Hussain Shah, the erstwhile Dardpora militant with multiple marriages, is finally home after the court bailed him out. It has been 20 years since he left his village, now mostly comprising of widows and orphans. He was arrested by Delhi police while returning home under the rehabilitation policy of J&K government. A subsequent hue and cry led the NIA to take over the investigations. Shah is all praise for the NIA and claims the Delhi police actually tried to kill him.
RAJOURI
An insane brother of a Village Defence Committee (VDC) member committed suicide with his brother’s rifle. Police identified him as Yash Pal Singh, a resident of Dalori village. The slain had used just a bullet of the vintage .303 to kill himself. The enigmatic part of the story is that Ram Singh, the VDC member to whom the weapon was allotted, had died about six months ago but the police failed to collect the rifle and live rounds from the family. Does not require mention, the police have registered an FIR.
SRINAGAR
A Chicago based Kashmir American group is trying its luck to revive the traditional music especially the Rabab. Last week, the Funkar International gathered 40 boys and girls comprising pupils and instructors to make an effort to get two Rabab players. Asmat Ashai, the chairperson of the NGO, is a retired teacher who is keen to help traditions survive. Her group has produced two music albums – Saaz Teh Awaaz and Maenzraath, an audio compact disc of 12 Kashmiri songs sung on the eve of wedding. She is not alone. She has got her two sons to learn music and is accompanied by Habibullah Wardakh, a 25-year-old Afghan- American and an expert rabab player.
GORAKHPOR
Soon after he crossed into UP from Nepal while on way home from PaK, Jamal Bhat lost his wife at Gorakhpor railway station on July 10, 2012. A resident of Sodal in Handwara, Jamal had crossed the LoC in 1998 and married Fatima Begum, a resident of Lepal (PaK). For years, Bhat was running a Unani medicines shop. He was lured back home by the rehabilitation policy. At Gorakhpur, they got on a Delhi-bound train. Once they realized their mistake, Bhat and his four children jumped out but the old lady could not. It was Panthers Party MLC Mohammad Rafiq Shah who wrote to Prime Minister, and UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav help trace the missing lady.
MUMBAI
Priyanka Chopra was seen in Katra last week and a lot many from Bollywood were in Kashmir. Filmmaker Abhishek Kapoor is Kashmir bound to shoot an adaptation of Charles Dickens’ classic novel Great Expectations for Ekta Kapoor. Sushant Singh Rajput plays the protagonist in the film, which will go on floors by October. And Imtiaz Ali spent a lot of time here attending weddings, interacting with media students and obviously shooting his film Highway in Aru with Alia Bhat and Randeep Hooda. Highway is a road movie that was shot in Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh. Here in Kashmir, they shot with the nomadic Bakerwals.
BANDIPORA
After this enigmatic cop Ahad Jan flung his shoe at Omar Abdullah in August 2010, he was arrested, tortured and granted pardon at the highest level by none other than the Chief Minister himself. He was set free, placed under suspension and finally dismissed for indiscipline. Now, he is in judicial custody in a case of extortion that police registered against him. His arrest came after a driver complained before the police that Jan had extorted Rs 30,000 from him. Earlier Jan had tried to become a hero but it did not last long.
Rs 15 crore is the turnover of Rahim Group of Industries that has 220 employees on rolls and distributed 220 Devdaar saplings for plantation as part of its CSR
Pilgrim traffic to Vaishno Devi fell by 246555 in 2013 till May 22 if compared to last year’s figure of 3467395 pilgrims.
