DELHI
Finally the two men controlling the South and North Pole alliance in J&K have met. In the second meeting after taking over as Chief Minister Mufti Sayeed discussed key issues on development, governance, diplomacy and politics with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Mufti has pushed for early resumption of talks with Pakistan insisting a cold war impedes J&K development. Modi accepted Mufti’s invitation instantly and will be flying to Srinagar on November 5, the day when Bihar will cast its last vote. Apart from inaugurating Baglihar-II, he will announce an Rs 92000 crore plus “package” which is being seen as PMRP-II. Interestingly, a major chunk of it will go to the energy sector.
UDHAMPUR
Surcharging situations over beef was the last latest on politics. But the victims were innocuous truckers. A group of youth were shown bovine slaughter and encouraged to react. They ambushed a truck and tossed petrol bombs into it. Of the three inmates, Showkat and Zahid suffered severe burn injuries. Like in films, police were late. The two were driven to Jammu and then flown to Safdar Jung Hospital in Delhi – the new destination of photo-opp. Back home, Engineer Rashid played the new hero. He got the fathers of the two injured to Srinagar, address a joint press conference, and gave them one lakh rupees each. The families have already returned Rs 40,000 of interim relief plus the costs of the air-tickets they were provided earlier to see their sons in Delhi, to Chief Minister Mufti Sayeed. Their only shock: Chief Minister did not ask us, why we are returning the cash?
BOHRI KADAL
A twist in the non-lethal debate suggests existence of a ‘tear-smoke’ shell that emits fire and burns. There are two cases but the one reported is a fourth grader, Aamir Ahangar, son of an auto-rickshaw driver. Admitted for many days in SMHS’s Burns Ward, Ahanger was reportedly on way to fetch milk from the market when the flame-emitting shell burnt him near a shop. An unknown car, later seized, had dropped him in the hospital. Doctors see him as a rare case with 18% burn injuries, mostly on face and arms, by tear-smoke shells. The other twist is that boy’s father had to go to the police to get the people released who had driven his son to the hospital. Police say they lack a weapon that does this to a boy but alternative accounts exist.
JAMMU
Naresh Kumar, a BSF (33-Bn) guard admitted to the state run psychiatry hospital in Jammu has unnerved his bosses by alleging that his admission to the hospital might be part of an attempt on his life. Resident of Akhnoor, he was posted with BSF hospital with two doctors. He has claimed that he would make purchases for his doctor officers and once he started claiming reimbursement, he was abused and dubbed an insane. He was initially admitted in the local hospital and then to Jammu. His wife resisted any medication saying he was all right. As the story leaked, the doctors have “discharged” him. Quite a script for a soap-opera!
BANDIPORA
It might explain the a-rape-a-day phenomenon in J&K. A young lady, barely 17 in 1987, was kidnapped by a youth with three associates and driven to a Srinagar hotel where she was raped for 12 days. Almost 28 years later, the court recorded her statement last week, revived the investigations in the FIR and is understood to have arrested one of the accused. The rapist is still on the run.
DODA
Nature has its own way of playing with an individual’s space and time matrix. Khalid Najeeb Suharwardy, the erstwhile Home Minister of the state, led the funeral prayers of two ‘militants’ in Doda who were slain in Chenab Valley’s first ever encounter in last four years. It was a huge Azadi-sloganeering crowd in the funeral prayers. The slain militants – Ghulam Mohammad Mangnoo and Reyaz Ahmad, were Special police Officials (SPO) and deserted to become rebels. Mangoo had earlier surrendered as LeT commander in 2010 and joined as SPO along with Reyaz who was with HM. Later they deserted police and were now tracked and neutralized. After the two were buried, police have disarmed all its SPOs having militant background.
Of the 26 seats of LAHDC Leh going to polls on October 17, BJP and Congress are contesting 25 and PDP and NC eight seats each. Partners PDP and BJP are facing each other at seven seats.
Of Rs 5.18 crore that Traffic Police recovered as fine for wrong parking in last four years, Rs 1.22 crore were taken as service charges by an enterprise New Nishat Enterprises for driving away the wrongly parked cars.
