LEH
A total of 299 women, aged between 18 and 60, dressed up in traditional Ladakhi wedding attire, danced together at an altitude of over 4500 meters above sea level at Hemis, a Buddhist monastery, situated 45 km from Leh, to mark the last day of the Naropa festival and also created a Guinness World Record. Swapnil Dangarikar, Official Adjudicator, Guinness World Records has declared the dance performance as the ‘Largest Ladakhi Dance’ by Live to Love, Pel Drupka Charitable Trust and Young Drukpa Association Ladakh at Hemis. Famous as the Himalayan Kumbh, the Naropa Festival is celebrated every 12 years of the Tibetan calendar.
PULWAMA
The fight between the government forces and militants continues with a recent incident in which the house of a killed militant was allegedly set ablaze by the government forces. The father of the militant Sameer Ahmed (Tiger) in Drubgam Pulwama has reportedly said that government forces sprinkled Kerosene oil around their residential house and then set it on fire, when all of his family members were present inside the house. It was due to the timely action of the neighbours that the fire was brought under control and the family was rescued. It all started last month when the forces allegedly barged into the houses of militants and arrested their family members following which militants reciprocated in a similar way.
KARGIL
A foreign tourist couple, Micheal Mobius and his wife, who were trapped in snow between Pudzong La and Rang dum in Kargil were finally rescued by Air Force team. The couple somehow sent a distress signal to the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre, where local team received a SoS following which immediate action was taken. The couple is currently undergoing a treatment at a hospital.
MOHALI
After repeated assurances from union home ministry that Kashmiri students won’t be attacked in any part of India, last week, a Kashmiri student, Masroor Ahmed, a resident of Adigam Kokernag area of south Kashmir’s Islamabad district, was assaulted inside his college Adesh Institute of Technology and Management, Mohali. Recently, he has got admission in the college and is 1st semester student of BBA. Reportedly he was attacked by some unknown persons with a sharp-edged weapon after which he was left with multiple injuries in his leg and chest.
JAMMU
‘Born in Indian administered Kashmir and buried in Pakistan administered Kashmir’ looks like a punch line of a movie but it is a true story of 18 years old Saleem Khan, a Jammu division resident, who met an accident in Kargil; his body got washed away in Shingo river and finally was retrieved in Gilgit Balitstan where he was buried after proper funeral. Saleem was in an oil tanker, travelling from Jammu to Leh, when the accident happened on June 7 in Kargil; the tanker fell into Shingo river with three men onboard. Days later, the authorities in Kharma area of Gilgit found the details about the owner of the tanker, and Chaman Lal, Saleem’s employer, informed that Saleem’s body was buried there. Back home, his family is struggling to get his body back, who have already met with the divisional commissioner in Jammu, and now they have approached Union external affairs minister as well but to no avail.
HIMACHAL
A budding mountaineer, Nahida Manzoor along with another mountaineer Danish Mukhtar scaled 5289 meter altitude Friendship Peak in Manali, Himachal Pradesh last month. Nahida leads the girl cadets of National Cadet Corps (NCC) team to the successful summit of Mount Deo Tibba. 6001 Mts high, Mount Deo Tibba is the 2nd highest peak in Pir Panjal Range of Himalayas in Manali, Himachal Pradesh.
BANDIPORA
It has become a new norm that militants killed around LoC are dubbed as foreign militants. However, last week, when five militants were killed in Sumlar Bandipora’s two day gunfight, at least seven local Kashmiri families claimed that they are their kins. The army had claimed the slain as non-locals. The local police have now started taking DNA samples of the families which will be sent for forensics after which the bodies will be handed over to their respective families.
