REASI
A Sunday picnic outing turned into mourning when landslide hit Sehar Baba’s waterfall, a revered place in Reasi district, killing seven persons and injuring 26. Located on the banks of Chenab River, Sehar Baba is visited by both locals and Vasihno Devi bound pilgrims. Interestingly, the rescue operation was being monitored by Jitendra Singh from Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) in Delhi.
SRINAGAR
On July 19, 2018, the journey of Haji Habibullah Khan ended at Mazar-e-Shuhada (martyrs’ graveyard) at Eidgah in Srinagar, the same graveyard which he took care of since militancy broke in 1989. Khan as a gravedigger has laid to rest around 2000 people, including Mirwaiz Molvi Farooq, Abdul Gani Lone, Ishfaq Majeed Wani, Abdul Hameed Sheikh, and Jaleel Andrabi. A gravedigger by chance, Khan volunteered when an unidentified youngster’s body was bought for burial at Eid Ghah in 1989. This was the first body Khan buried, but not the last as militancy intensified, leaves scores dead on a daily basis. His funeral prayers were led by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq.
CHRAR-e-SHARIEF
A tragic end to a love story took place in remote village of Budgam district’s Dadukhatu village, when Sameer’s body was fished out from a water reservoir in Yusmarg on July 10.
Sameer’s family alleged that he was killed by his lover’s brother, after kidnapping him on June 24. Once the mourning was over, Sameer’s relatives marched towards girls house and vandalised their property. It took intervention from police and SOG to restore order in the village.
SRINAGAR
AMU PHD scholar turned Hizb-ul-Mujahideen militant Mannan Bashir Wani, recently created a storm in both real and virtual world after his long letter was published by a Srinagar based news gathering agency Current News Service (CNS). Within hours of its release Wani’s letter became the most shared item of the day on the internet in Kashmir. But by evening, after police filed an FIR against CNS for carrying Wani’s letter, it was taken down from all web-portals. While CNS argues that they carried Wani’s write-up for its news value, police thinks otherwise.
BAGH-e-MEHTAB
In the Governor Raj, the anti-corruption institutions have gone active. The first major raid by State Vigilance Organisation (SVO) was in the house of Assistant Regional Transport Officer (ARTO) Shopian, Abdul Majid Bhat, where it ended with the recovery of Rs 32 lakh in cash, gold worth Rs 10 lakhs and a licensed pistol along with 47 rounds. They also recovered Rs 99 thousands in old discarded currency.
Other recoveries include ownership documents of plots in Punjab and Chadoora (Budgam). Various bank check books and passbooks were also recovered.
JAMMU
In a first such initiative, all women business unit of the Jammu and Kashmir Bank was e-inaugurated this week by the first lady Usha Vohra from the SKICC auditorium. The thread that united all the women participants from different social and economic backgrounds with those from the bank was the yearning for gender-equality in both the journeys and processes of economic development of the state.
SHOPIAN
In a dramatic development body of Tariq Ahmad Mohand, 24, a resident of Heff in Shopian, was exhumed and buried in local martyr’s graveyard. It was done after militants appeared at his village and ordered he should be buried in martyr’s graveyard with full honour. Mohand was first kidnapped and then killed by unidentified gunmen on July 8, 2018. His body was found in a paddy field in Arwani village of Kulgam. Soon, rumours started doing rounds that Tariq was killed for being an army informer. Interestingly, Tariq, a carpenter, was cousin of slain Hizb militant Bilal Ahmad Mohand alias Bilal Molvi, who was killed along with Saddam Padder in Badigam area of Shopian on May 6 this year.
100 militants, 43 forces personnel, 16 civilians killed in J&K in last 6 months: MHA
