JAMMU
At a time when the entire security grid was on high alert, owing to the presence of Home Minister Amit Shah in town, a depressed domestic help killed Additional DG rank IPS officer, HK Lohia, who was heading Jammu and Kashmir’s Prisons Department. A soft-spoken and professional officer from Assam, Lohia joined the Jammu and Kashmir cadre on October 11, 1992. He became the DIG of the Ramban-Doda range, from where his killer belonged. In 2016, Lohia went on central deputation and joined Border Security Force for seven years during which he served as IG BSF in Tripura, IG HR, and IG Administration. He returned to Srinagar after serving as IG Technical Services. In Jammu and Kashmir, he was IG Traffic in 2012 and headed the Director Special Service Group, State Disaster Management Force, Home Guard, before getting the seat of DG Prisons.
Lohia’s official residence was being renovated and he moved to his friend Rajiv Khajuria’s home in Jammu periphery. Yasir Ahmad Lohar, a school drop-out from the Halla belt of Ramban, was serving the family for six odd months. On a fateful evening, police investigations said, Yasir went to his room and applied some ointment to his swollen foot and then killed him with a broken bottle. He also made attempts to suffocate him after lighting a fire. Though the family comprising Lohia’s wife, Madhu Lohia, daughter and son – who is slated to marry in December, attempted to get in, they failed as it was bolted from the inside. The guards who were posted outside located the fire and eventually barged in. By then, he was no more. Interestingly, Yasir managed to give all a slip and was arrested almost 20 hours later from rice fields in Kanachak.
Investigators said they failed to trace a terror angle but established that Yasir was mentally depressed. They located some of his writings that offered a widow to his disturbed mind space.
“I hate my life. Zindagi to bas takleefdetihai. Sukoon to ab maut hi degi. (Life only brings sorrow, only death will bring me peace now),” one note in his diary revealed. “Dear death, please come into my life. I am always waiting for you.” Another entry said: “My life 1% Happy 10% Love 0% Tension 90% Sad 99% Fake smile 100%.” Police have not been able to locate the motive behind Lohia’s murder. It remains to be seen how a hugely depressed man will be brought to justice.
Makers of Kashmir Files Vivek Agnihotri and Pallavi Joshi have purchased an apartment in Mumbai’s Versova locality for worth Rs 17.92 crore
GAMBIA
Separated by seas, the African republic of the Gambia and the Udhampur district of Jammu and Kashmir were connected by a cough syrup manufactured in Himachal and Sonepat in Haryana. Syrups carrying poisonous adulterant diethylene glycol was responsible for 17 infant deaths in Ramnagar and now 66 in the Gambia. Now a WHO alert has led the officials to move fast and prevent the reputation of India’s pharmaceutical sector in the world. Though the police have registered cases in the Ramnagar deaths that took place in late 2019 and early 2020, they are yet to file a formal charge sheet.
The syrups consumed in Ramnagar were produced by Himachal-based company Kala Amb-based firm Digital Vision and the ones held responsible for the deaths in the Gambia were manufactured by Sonepat-based Maiden Pharmaceuticals. In Jammu, police said they will still take a fortnight in completing the case. The FIR (number 33 of March 3, 2020) was registered at Ramnagar police station under Section 16, Section 17A (e), Section 18 (a) (i) read with Section 27(a) and Section 36AC of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940, and under the relevant provision of the IPC. Authorities, however, have asked the districts to seize the products suspected to be carrying poisonous molecules.
Kashmir’s almost 200 thousand traditional sheep herders, the Chopans say they are illiterate and landless and have a right to ST status
MARWAH
In response to Home Minister’s challenge to reveal what the “three families” have done in the last 70 years, the National Conference has issued a document. The real big story, however, is that when the high-profile visit came, Dr Farooq Abdullah was in Wadwan, a place located in the peaks between Kashmir and Jammu divisions – an area where people go on trekking and not for politics, at least no politician of that age – 86 – can afford going there. It was just not a routine visit. Greeted by crowds everywhere, a horse-riding Dr Farooq not only made sensible speeches but also danced with the cheering crowds. The energy that he displayed in a series of clips that reached Srinagar, even impressed his son, who tweeted: “It’s been a while since I’ve seen my father on a horse/pony. Not bad for a for an 86-year-old. He’s had a very successful visit to the deep interiors of Kishtwar district.”
Home Minister, Amit Shah, during his 3-day Jammu and Kashmir visit, laid the foundation stone and inaugurates projects worth Rs 1939 crore
DELHI
The government of India designated 10 operatives of various militant outfits in Kashmir as terrorists under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). These include Habibullah Malik alias Sajid Jutt, a Pakistani national, Basit Ahmad Reshi (Baramulla), Imtiyaz Ahmad Kandoo alias Sajad (Sopore), Zafar Iqbal alias Salim (Poonch), Sheikh Jameel-ur-Rehman alias Sheikh Sahab (Pulwama), Bilal Ahmad Beigh alias Babar (Srinagar), Rafiq Nai alias Sultan (Poonch), Irshad Ahmad alias Idrees (Doda), Bashir Ahmad Peer alias lmtiyaz (Kupwara) and Showkat Ahmad Sheikh alias Showkat Mochi (Baramulla). All of them are in Pakistan. Designating a person terrorist under the UAPA helps security agencies to block the finances available to the individual concerned and also restrict his movement in and out of the country. Before the 2019 amendment in UAPA, only an outfit could be designated as a terrorist.
In 2022, patients in Jammu Kashmir have saved more than Rs 100 crore on medicine purchases by consuming the products marketed by state-run Jan Aushadhi Kendra AMRIT pharmacies networks.
JAMMU
The government recalled four officers who were members at the Jammu and Kashmir Services Selection Board. They are Shagun Sharma, Ashiq Hussain Lily, Neelam Khajuria and Narayan Dutt. The recall came within days after the CBI, investigating the infamous SSB paper leak racket, found that apart from three selection lists, another one was also compromised. They found that the fraud within and outside the Board has succeeded in changing the OMR sheets and suggested the involvement of the people within the Board. Though the people who were selected in the list are working as employees, it remains to be seen if the government initiates any action against them as well. Reports indicate that some arrests are round the corner.
Meanwhile, the government has asked the Public Service Commission (JKPSC) to re-advertise vacancies for the posts of assistant professors, librarians and physical training instructors (PTIs) in the Higher Education Department after changing their selection criteria. In another unprecedented move, the administration has decided to have two of the five members in JKPSC’s screening committee from among its own nominees, including serving bureaucrats, interview shortlisted candidates. This is being seen as a serious compromise of an institution.
Projects worth Rs 10,000 crore are under implementation in Jammu and Kashmir and 111 promoters have paid a lease amount of Rs 217 crore for 9869 kanals of land.
MEGHALAYA
Satya Pal Malik, who was made famous by his stint in Srinagar Raj Bhawan, has finally retired. Malik, 76, has served as Governor of Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir and Goa before being moved to Meghalaya in August 2020. The government did not extend his tenure beyond October 3. Though a long-time politician, his public image saw an uptick by his posting in Srinagar at a time when Article 370 was read down. His tenure saw a noisy Raj Bhawan, a trait he continued to display even after being moved from place to place. Off late, he was having a strange love-hate relationship with the party he belonged to and that gave him the plum postings. Every time he talked, a controversy was generated. BJP, however, kept its cool, registered an FIR in a “revelation” he made and finally eased him off. A resident of Bhagpat (UP), Malik was also a Rajya Sabha member from 1980-89.
BUDGAM
on September 28, 2022 in a case of sextortion and blackmail. Pic: JKP
People used to talk about online sextortion and with the passage of time, it came home. Jammu and Kashmir Police recently busted a racket in which a woman, her husband and their friend had extorted Rs 40 lakh from her victims in Budgam and Srinagar. The undoing of the gang started when a senior government officer approached the police in Srinagar. He said he has been scammed by Rs 8 lakh and was still being blackmailed. Police eventually arrested Shaista Bashir, her husband Aijaz Ahmed Ganie, and their friend Jahangir Ahmed Dar. More arrests are in line. Nazir Ahmad Rather told police that he received a call from Saba who insisted he meets her. They met near Bakshi Stadium in Srinagar and she took him to her room at Reck Chowk Batamaloo and started levelling false allegations against him inside the room.
In the meantime, three other men (associates of the lady) forcibly entered the room and started making a video. Then she, along with her accomplices, started blackmailing him and he fell prey to a well-planned conspiracy of sextortion. Shaista Bashir Saba and Aijaz live at Narkara and Jahangir is a resident of Pethpohru Handwara.
PIR PANCHAL
With almost two million tourists visiting Kashmir this season, the fragile ecology is taking its toll. Trekking is an in-thing and it has started triggering mess in areas which are normally inaccessible. Trekkers who have been organising the treks to the distant high-altitude lakes said that deep inside the mountains there is a lot of plastic and garbage that is going to cost the fragile ecology dearly. Even the tourism department is said to be alarmed by unusual littering of plastic and polythene trash along the 72-km trek trail to the famous lakes – Vishansar lake, Krishansar lake, Gadsar lake, Harmukh peak and Gangabal twin lakes. In a cleanliness drive launched between September 23 and 27, volunteers collected heaps of garbage, “having the potential to increase the ground temperature in the long run” in the Harmukh mountain range of the Himalayas.
Official records suggest that 13000 trekkers including 650 foreigners, visited the high-altitude lakes, located above an altitude of 11,000 feet from sea level. The sites remain open for trekkers only for three months. The drive saw 25 major gunny bags of trash collected by 35 volunteers from these lakes, with most of the littering found around the picturesque Gangabal lake.
