JAMMU
In the ongoing CBI investigations in the SSB paper leak, the new revelations suggest the frauds operating the gang replaced OMR sheets in Panchayat Assistants selections for Rs 4 crore. So far, 28 replaced OMR sheets have been noticed and more are expected to be recovered. Since OMR sheets are being signed by the invigilators, the net of fraud is expected to widen. Some officers and a sitting member of the board is said to be involved. The fraud has already led to the cancellation of Sub Inspectors in JKP, Financial Accounts Assistants and JE Civil. Now it has been revealed that even Panchayat Assistants’ selection was also compromised. The racket operated in Akhnoor, Khour, Pallanwalla, and Kanachak areas only. CBI has already arrested eight persons including a teacher, two cops and one former CRPF jawan. Three of them have been sent to jail while five others are still in CBI custody facing interrogation.
Along LoC in Rajouri, 2783 underground stand completed.
UDHAMPUR
The erstwhile Panthers are mending fences. Balwant Singh Mankotia who earlier resigned Panthers Party and joined Aam Aadmi Party was expelled and within days joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Delhi. Dr Jitendra Singh and Rajeev Chandrasekhar and BJP general secretary Tarun Chugh were part of his entry to the saffron party. Mankotia was the president of the National Panthers Party before he joined Aam Aadmi Party in April 2022.
2359.45 hectares of state land were acquired for infrastructure development in three years Besides, the government retrieved 26,964 kanal land from beneficiaries which were transferred under the Roshni Act 2001.
DUDPATHRI
In order to control illegal Riverbed Mining (RBM) in Kashmir, particularly in Shali Ganga stream in upper Budgam, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) has issued a landmark 212-page judgement and banned the mining operations. The District administration was asked to implement the orders. The ban came after a protracted legal battle by Dr Raja Muzaffar Bhat against J&K SEIAA and NKC Projects Pvt Ltd, a company that is constructing the Srinagar Semi Ring Road project. The order has explicitly exposed the ecological vandalism undertaken by the company that is using huge JCBs for illegal riverbed mining, a crime it has admitted during the trial of the case. It had been excavating major boulders from the river as well.
The 4.6-km long flyover on the now-8-lane 32-Km NH 144-A (Jammu-Akhnoor-Rajouri-Poonch highway) is ready. It connects Canal head with Ganesh Vihar. It has cost almost Rs 350 crore.
LONDON
A Kashmiri footballer falls in The Guardian list of 60 best young talents in world football in 2022. Identified as Suhail Ahmad Bhat, the Kashmir footballer is associated with the Indian Arrows Football Club. Suhail was born on April 8, 2005, and he currently plays as a forward for Indian Arrows. In 2017, Bhat joined the Sports Council Football Academy after he got selected from a football camp in Srinagar. Suhail has scored on his Under-16 debut for India against the United Arab Emirates in 2021. There are high hopes that the 17-year-old player will eventually be the long-term successor of India’s striking legend Sunil Chhetri. Suhail Bhat was a student of class 1 0 at Shah-i-Hamdan Educational Institute, Bemina, Srinagar. He has always excelled in school. But his passion for football finally got the better of him and the 15-year-old agreed to join the India U16 side.
Shri Maharaja Hari Singh (SMHS) Hospital received 4520 dog bite cases (3849 from Srinagar city) between January 1, and September 16, 2022. Srinagar district tops the list with 3849 dog bites in the last nine months
KISHTWAR
Using a CCTV network and human intelligence, the Jammu and Kashmir Police in Kishtwar recovered a six-month-old boy within hours after he was stolen from her mother in the local hospital. It was a burqa-clad woman who had kidnapped the boy by taking it from her mother – who had gone to make an admission slip from the counter. Police released the photograph of the woman and announced a Rs 10,000 reward. Within a few hours, the baby was recovered and the woman was arrested. Meanwhile, in Srinagar, the police said it is using drones for surveillance in public spaces.
More than a dozen kids in a Srinagar school were infected with contagious hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) leading the management to close the lower primary department.
BUDGAM
A group of nine JKMAC mountaineers successfully summitted the Tatakooti peak in the vast Pir Panchal (4750 meters) range. It is the third successful scaling ever attempted in recorded history in the last 120 years. Professional mountaineers, Ghulam Mohammad Wani and Arashid Majid led the group. Tatakooti peak lies on the South Western side of Kashmir and is the highest peak of PirPanjal Range, bounding the valley from South West. Dr Ernest Neve, a renowned mountaineer and medical missionary, in his book Beyond the PirPanjal describes the peak as “the most conspicuous and imposing of all the peaks of PirPanjal range is undoubtedly Tatakooti peak, the pyramidal shape of which with a central notch and very steep and jagged western and northern sides, makes it look as if it might be exceedingly difficult to ascend.”
Dr Neve scaled the peak in 1901. In 2018 JKMAC club members, under the leadership of late Adil Shah, were able to summit its southern peak while doing a recce of the route leading to the main peak.
Across Jammu and Kashmir, 1232 drug peddlers were arrested in 867 FIRs in the first in first three months of fiscal 2022.
WASHINGTON
Speaking to a group of Indian Americans after making a speech at the UN, Foreign Minister S Jaishankar blamed American media for ‘biased’ India coverage. “If there are Indian soldiers or Indian policemen who are abducted; If there are people working for the government, or citizens going about their business, who will lose their lives?” the minister said. “How often do you hear people talking about it; pronouncing it, in fact, look at the media coverage. What does the media cover what does the media not cover?” He said the opinions and perceptions are shaped. The minister said they will continue educating the people about the ground realities. “There is a big song and dance about the Internet being cut. Now, if you’ve reached the stage where you say an Internet cut is more dangerous than the loss of human lives, then what can I say?” Jaishankar said. “If you look at A (Article) 370-issue. What was a temporary provision of the Constitution was finally put to rest this was supposed to be an act of majority. This was supposed to be majoritarian. Tell me what was happening in Kashmir was not majoritarian?, I think the way facts are slanted, things are laid out. What is right, and what is wrong is confused. This is actually politics at work.” The minister added: “I honestly believe that if you look at the whole 370 the Jammu and Kashmir situation, to me it’s mind-boggling. Something whose merits were so obvious, should actually there even be people who would think a different way.”
SRINAGAR
Police in Bandipora attached a residential house for allegedly sheltering and harbouring militants, after obtaining sanction from the competent authority. The house belongs to Bashir Ahmad Mir of Wanpora Gurez, at the present a resident of Watrina. The police said the case in which the house was attached involved the killing of two militants. “The investigation proved beyond doubt that the said house was used for the purpose of militancy, sheltering, harbouring militants & such act was voluntarily and knowingly given by the member of the family. Many attacks on civilians and protected persons were carried, conspired and planned by militants while using this house as a hideout,” the police statement reads. Meanwhile, the NIA in Delhi has opposed an appeal by Asiya Andrabi and two of her associates seeking the release of their properties sealed in a similar case in 2019.
RAMBAN
A 22-year-old woman gave birth to a boy in an ambulance as shooting stones from the hills prevented the passage of the vehicle to the hospital in Ramban. The mother was identified as Shaheena, a resident of Dharam-Sangaldan in Gool. The birth took place in ambulance 108 with the help of the support staff at Cafeteria, Mehar. The ambulance had covered some 35 km and was approaching Ramban when the shooting stones paralysed the road.
DELHI
The Supreme Court is expected to hear the petitions regarding Article 370 after the Dussehra vacations. A bench comprising Chief Justice Uday Umesh Lalit and Justices Indira Banerjee and S Ravindra Bhat took note of the submissions of a counsel that the pleas were assured to be listed after the summer vacation but they could not be listed. “We will certainly list that,” the CJI said. On April 25 this year, a bench headed by the then CJI N V Ramana, since retired, had agreed to consider listing after the summer vacation the pleas challenging the Centre’s decision to abrogate provisions of Article 370. The pleas were then mentioned by interveners Radha Kumar (academic and author) and Kapil Kak (retired officer of the Indian Air Force). For hearing the pleas, the top court will have to re-constitute a five-judge bench to hear the pleas as the ex-CJI Ramana and Justice R Subhash Reddy, who were part of the five-judge bench which had heard the pleas, have retired. Besides the two former Judges, Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, B R Gavai and Surya Kant were part of the bench which, on March 2, 2020, had declined to refer to a larger seven-judge bench the batch of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Centre’s decision to read down Article 370.
RAMNAGAR
In a tragic incident, almost a family was wiped out as three sisters and their brother drowned while taking bath at Chattrari Nallah in Ramnagar. The deceased siblings had gone for grazing their cattle where they accidentally drowned apparently while taking bath in the Nallah or trying to rescue each other. They were identified as Nishu Devi, 16, daughter of Firangu Ram, her sisters Anju Devi, 22, Meenakshi, 12, and brother Yash Pal, 24.
