SRINAGAR
Administrating is in a fast-forward mode to ensure a successful third G20 tourism working group meeting in Kashmir between May 22 and 24. Deliberations apart, the delegates will be taken on sightseeing tours to Gulmarg. A film tourism event is scheduled on the side-lines. Earlier two meetings of the working group took place at Rann of Kutch (Gujarat) and Siliguri (West Bengal). Apart from G20 members, the meeting is expected to be attended by Bangladesh, Egypt, Mauritius, Netherlands, Nigeria, Oman, Singapore, Spain and UAE. Though a lot of meetings have taken place to ensure an incident-free G20 meeting, now an MHA team with IB has flown to Srinagar for review arrangements. Yet another delegation is flying to Srinagar for another meeting later this month.
Kathua’s Basohli Painting has obtained the Geographical Indication (GI) Tag.
JAMMU
Temple properties across Kashmir are being verified in order to check if any part of them has been sold. All deputy Commissioners have been asked to submit the updated inventory within a week. The verification was triggered by an application to the LG Manoj Sinha office demanding a probe into the “illegal lease of temple properties” in Kashmir. The applicant alleged that the land of temples and shrines has been sold or leased out in several districts in violation of the Migrant Property Protection Act.
Of 22.40 lakh kanals under encroachment, the Jammu and Kashmir administration said 15.83 lakh kanals of land were retrieved in the last three months.
SRINAGAR
Mehbooba Mufti’s daughter Iltija has triggered a Himalayan controversy after the Regional Passport Officer issued her a UAE-specific passport for two years. “Am I a fugitive? Am I Nirav Modi, am I a terrorist, an anti-national that I am being punished? If I talk about the central government, is it like talking against the country?” she said while displaying the passport. She accused the Jammu and Kashmir Police’s CID of “persecuting” Kashmiris. Claiming that the CID has invoked Official Secrets Act to deny her a passport, Iltija said it might have also pressed espionage charges against her. Iltija said the government wanted to make an example out of her family “so as to stop people from raising their voice”. Her passport had expired in January 2022 and she moved to court for getting it renewed. Iltija presser led CID to issue a statement saying the claims were “completely false”. It said out of 77686 passport verifications received in 2020, 77,644 (99.95 per cent) were cleared, while out of 75,714 passport verifications received in 2021, 75,176 (99.68 per cent) were cleared. Similarly, in 2022, out of 1,34,315 passport verifications received, 1,28,939 (99.61 per cent) were cleared. In three years, the data suggest passport verification has been withheld only in 5956 cases. “Security verifications preceding the issue of passports is a high-value public service. J&K Police has detected as many as 54 young boys who were wrongly given passport service during 2017-18,” the statement said. Of them 26 were killed on the LoC, 12 were permitted to return and arrested and 16 are still on the other side of the LoC.
Mustard cultivation is back. Against 30,000 hectares under mustard cultivation, the oilseeds were grown over 1.01 lakh hectares in 2021-22 and nearly 1.40 lakh hectares in 2022-23.
URI
In order to manage the drug smuggling, law enforcement agencies have finally started getting to the right corridor – the area straddling the Line of Control in Uri and Karnah. So far drugs worth Rs 70 crore were seized and cash of Rs 11.82 recovered from a group of smugglers in Karnah and Uri. Security agencies are convinced that the roots of the drug peddling trade are located near the LoC. They have admitted they recovered a lot of drugs from the people living near the virtual border.
Wular Conservation and Management Authority (WUCMA) has axed 1,20,694 willows from the lake area in three years and sold the clefts for Rs 25 crore.
AHMADABAD
Finally, the super-conman Kiran Bhai Patel, goes home to Gujarat as the host police took him on transit remand. His wife is already in custody in Gujarat as the couple is facing four police cases there as well. In Srinagar, a resident has registered an FIR accusing Patel of committing fraud involving Rs 18 lakh. For almost six months, Patel has been enjoying a VVIP status and Z+ security after posing as an additional director (Strategy and Campaign) in the PMO. Patel has rooted in right-wing politics and the Deputy Commissioner, on whose recommendations the security was extended to him, was informed of Patel’s status by aright-wing worker. Finally, the Gujarat Police have taken his custody. Will there be any revelations, nobody knows. Gujarat, after all, knows how to get the genie into the bottle. Investigations have revealed that two persons played a key role in making conman play with the system – A Deputy Commissioner and Rajasthan-based RSS functionary Trilok Singh Chauhan, who earlier served as a vistarak in Jammu and Kashmir.
The sanctioned strength for IAS officers in Jammu and Kashmir will go up to 165 instead of 145.
KUPWARA
It was gruesome and unprecedented. On March 29, in Zab Khurhama village, driver Iqbal Khatana fought with his wife and took a knife and left. Though he told he was going to fix the tyre, police investigations said he apparently left to commit suicide. Uzma, his 8-year-old daughter, followed him. “Iqbal took Uzma in his vehicle and reached Harden Road (crossing), then to the sewer through the link road. At 7:15 pm, he reached Khurhama Bus-Stand, where he halted till 8:10 pm, waiting for Isha Azaan, so that the street gets de-peopled, making it convenient to kill himself,” SSP Kupwara said. He disliked his daughter’s presence so he strangled her and then drove back home with her body. He placed the body in the firewood shed and then slit her throat. By then, he had decided against committing suicide. Khatana was a drug addict and had sold most of his property to stay high on weed and alcohol. Now, he will spend his life in jail and three of his surviving children and wife will have to manage their lives on their own. It will be Khatana’s father who will have to raise his grandchildren.
The unemployment rate for March in Jammu and Kashmir stood at 23.1 per cent, indicating that situations are not improving. In February it was 17.1 per cent, which was better than in January when it was 21.8 per cent.
RAJOURI
It looked like a Bollywood masala script. A thief barged into the main court’s Malkhana, the seizure room, which is high-security premises, and took away 4 kg heroin, about 1.5 kg charas, 500 capsules, Rs 53000 Indian currency and Rs 1 lakh fake Indian currency. After a case was registered, embarrassed police put under suspension the services of an Assistant Sub Inspector (ASI) and his five subordinates, deployed on guard duty in the seizure room. Finally, the police cracked the case. On the basis of the CCTV footage, they rounded up Mohammad Showkat (Khadi Karmara, Poonch), and Mohammad Taj (Hayyatpura Rajouri). Police said they have confessed to the crime and stolen material has been recovered.
As many as 53 former lawmakers including three former Chief Ministers’ occupy government accommodation illegally.
SRINAGAR
Jammu and Kashmir Apni Party founder Altaf Bukhari has been given Z+ security cover. This makes him a member of the former Chief Minister’s group that has this cover – Farooq and Omar Abdullah, Ghulam Nabi Azad, and Mehbooba Mufti. Numerically, reports said, Bukhari’s cover is higher than all others falling in the Z+ security group. Bukhari has said that it is nothing new as he falls into the Z+ category since 2015.
Lal Chowk
Yet again, Lal Chowk, the heart of Srinagar city is changing. The iconic Ghanta Ghar is currently being undone, which will pave the way for a new structure. This is said to be part of the renovation under the Smart City Project. Work is afoot and is likely to complete before the G20 Tourism Working Committee meeting in Srinagar in May. While people have criticised the process, the officials say the main structure will survive. “The Clock Tower (Ghanta Ghar) is being restored and rebuilt by SMC (Srinagar Municipal Corporation) to reflect our heritage and architecture — down to the finest details…. Shoddiness is not an alibi for preservation,” Junaid Mattu, Srinagar Mayor, tweeted.
Preschool kids will have no carry bags and those in class I and II shall carry bags not weighing beyond 1500 grams.
DELHI
Former Chief Minister, Ghulam Nabi Azad’s autobiography, Azaad, which Dr Karan Singh released in Delhi, has hit many wrong nerves. “With candid reflections on my life and career alongside some of India’s and the world’s most influential leaders, Azaad captures the essence of the great Indian story. I hope my readers will enjoy reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it,” Azad said at the book launch. Speaking at the function, which Dr Farooq Abdullah also attended, Azad, termed Congress as “spineless” and said Rahul Gandhi is the primary reason why he and many others quit the party. He said he can join hands with BJP and form a government in Jammu and Kashmir as there are “untouchables” in politics. He even attacked Mufti Sayeed and sought to take credit for the Congress-PDP government in 2002. Those passages are interestingly new to the behind the scene developments in 2002.
BEERWA
Almost 15 years after she was paralysed in an accident at home, Insha Bashir, 29, is one of Kashmir’s wheelchair-bound basketball players who play internationally. She was a twelfth-standard student when she fell down from the terrace. Now she is BA, BEd. Though her father was tackling her, he was inflicted by Parkinson’s disease. It was at the Shafaqat Rehabilitation Centre that she decided to fight back. She became the first wheelchair-bound woman from Kashmir to play basketball and in 2019, she represented India in the US.
