NEW DELHI
After screening a 10 minutes documentary on Kashmir militancy, the international news channel Al Jazeera English had to loose its security clearance from May 29, 2018. It beamed its broadcasts from December 3, 2010, though it was banned in 2015 for five days for incorrectly showing India’s map with respect to Jammu and Kashmir. Earlier, in May, MEA’s external publicity division sent letters to foreign journalists reminding them that they require prior permission to travel to certain areas under the Foreigners (Protected Areas) Order, 1958. These include Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim and parts of Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Rajasthan.
LANGATE
Finally after 17 days, the body of slain militant, Muzaffar Ahmad Mir, was exhumed and buried at his ancestral graveyard in Langate. He was killed in a gunfight along with his four associates in Rafiabad’s Dooniwari forests on August 8 and was buried in Hamam, as a foreigner. As the family pursued the case, they were granted permission for exhumation for DNA tests. Once that established his identity, he was buried in his ancestral cemetery.
HABBA KADAL
For the first time, a Kashmiri Muslim girl will be flying an aircraft of GoAir and IndiGo. After completing her flying training from the US in 2016, Iram Iram Habib, 30, a resident of Habba Kadal, has got 260 hours of flying experience from the US and a commercial pilot license in the US and Canada.
Iram has done her bachelor’s in forestry from Dehradun and post graduation in forestry from the Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology, Kashmir. She then pursued her PhD as per wishes of her family but left it midway and went to US to complete her dream.
TRAL
In a bizarre incident, a senior citizen was beaten by police personnel when he couldn’t produce his driving license. He was abused, thrashed and then his right arm was broken just because he had informed the cops that his son too was a police officer. But to the apathy of his police son, he struggled for many hours to just file an FIR in the incident. Even if the accused police personnel has been suspended after media reported the police action, can the police react to situations in the same spirit if it involves civilians?
MENDHAR
The Azadi slogans are very dear to Kashmiris, and it has cost them jails, PSAs and even torture. But last week, this slogan cost an FIR for the mainstream political party National Conference in Mendhar. The party had sponsored a shutdown call against the attempts of abrogating Article 35A and in the subsequent rally, Azadi slogans reverberated from the crowd.
RAMBAGH
Muzaffarbad based Hizb chief Syed Salahuddin’s second son, Shakeel Ahmad Shah, was arrested after a raid at his residence in Rambagh. A senior lab technician at SKIMS, Shakeel was first taken to JIC Humhama, where NIA officials question Kashmiri suspects, and then was flown to Delhi. In October 2017, the agency had arrested Shah’s son Syed Shahid Yousuf who is still in Tihar Jail.
2.85 Lakh Amarnath Yatris paid their obeisance in 2018
