For the third consecutive week, there has been another magisterial enquiry, this time in a case of death in custody of Sarfu Ram in the lock up of Joint Interrogation Centre (JIC) Miran Sahib (Jammu). Police say it is a case of suicide.

A resident of Camp Khour, police arrested Ram a few days back along with Shinda. Both were termed to be the trans-border smugglers who gave police leads about the operations of narco-terrorism and hawala systems from Pakistan to Delhi. Within 48 hours of his arrest, Ram was seen hanging in the JIC. Police said he used his pants to kill himself and become the first such case in JIC’s history. Immediately services of two cops were put under suspension. Though breathing when he was found hanging, he was declared brought dead by the hospital. Results of an autopsy are awaited.

Ram had served seven years imprisonment in Tihar for cross border smuggling and had returned home on July 19, 2010. His wife Preeto said Ram was working for all the security agencies including RAW, IB, MI and state police agencies but had abandoned working for them. This had brought him under pressure to resume working. In his absence, she said, her son was being forced to take up the job and in fact was once arrested in Delhi – when he had gone to meet his father.
Preeto claimed after the police arrested and tortured their son Sanjay on July 26, her husband surrendered a day after. Instead of his son getting freed, the police detained Preeto as well. They all claimed that they were tortured. Anjali, ram’s daughter alleged, her father had told of immense torture when she met him in the court premises and had told her police will kill him in coming days.

Police, however, say it was suicide. During the interrogation, they claimed, they had got certain leads from him that led to arrest of smugglers and recovery of hawala money. Police also say with Shinda – who owns a house near the IB, they would get high quality heroine from Pakistan which they would deliver to Delhi agents. On Mrach 9, they had killed a smuggler in R S Pora and seized five kilograms of heroine.

Poonch 6/8/11
The mentally challenged youth killed by an SPO and TA soldier for promotions and rewards was a Muslim. At least two families have claimed his corpse. Police have taken samples from four persons of two families for DNA fingerprinting to decide the kinship of the slain person.

SPO Noor Hussain and TA jawan Abdul Majeed are in custody along with Abdul Haq who had supplied pistol to the duo, facing two parallel investigations. Police had announced the death of high-end target with the killing of the civilian, but now presented the duo to media who admitted they were solely responsible for the murder. They said they had taken victim from Rajouri’s Gujjar Mandi Chowk and taken him to Krishna Hotel for a night halt.

Then they took him in a vehicle to Bafliaz and from Bafliaz to Pamrot in another vehicle. Aftrer killing him, they informed the police and named the slain abu Musa.

Sopore 30/7/11
SG constable Nisar Ahmad Malik who is one of the two persons arrested in the death in custody of Nazim Rashid Shalla was at his Islamabad home from July 26 to July 31 – the days of Shalla’s arrest and death. Nisar and another constable Abbas are currently on remand. He reached Sopore only after the death had taken place. But police say he was the person who destroyed the evidence – a wood roller used in the interrogation of Shalla was burnt by him. Interestingly however, there has not been any effort to question any of the 15 SOG personnel who were associated with the arrest and later his interrogation. DySP has only been attached.

Guru’s Jailor Is AUTHOR
Not many people know that Manoj Dwivedi who is the superintendent of Tihar’s Jail No 3 where parliament attack convict Afzal Guru is imprisoned has written a book. He has written an 180-page manuscript in Hindi but Tihar authorities have restrained from publishing it. Once, Guru complained of not getting tea and Dwivedi intervened. It paved way for prolonged interactions forcing the latter finally to pen it.

“I asked him why he used Guru as surname, and he explained that his family had converted to Islam but retained their Brahmin surname.” Dwivedi said. Reading on world religions, Guru wanted to know why young children were buried in Hinduism while adults were cremated. Guru wish is that when his son Ghalib grows up, he should be a nice man and good to people.


Hackers Pvt LTD

Kashmir has less availability of bandwidth but that does limit the hand-width of the people. Newspaper reports suggest a Kashmir-based cyber hackers group has claimed to have hacked more than 200 websites across India. They called themselves Z Company Hacking Crew (ZHC).

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Finally Pakistan has filed a petition in the Court of Arbitration (CoA), The Hague, seeking a stay order on construction of Kishenganga project by NHPC in Gurez. Islamabad is sending a 7-member delegation to attend the hearing of the CoA on August 25. Last month the CoA had visited the site on both sides of the LoC. India and Pakistan are setting up power projects on the same stream and it has become a major dispute between two countries under the 1960 water sharing agreement, the Indus Water Treaty.

Lensmen ATTACKED

Two photojournalists, a Kashmir and a Mexican on Friday were beaten and injured by the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) troopers and policemen during pro-freedom demonstrations in the Nowhata area of  old city  Srinagar.

Showkat Shafi, a freelancer with Al Jazeera and his Mexcian friend Narciso Contreras, working for Zuma photo service were manhandled and beaten by government forces and later detained by a joint team of CRPF and Police. They were later hospitalised and treated for injuries.   

Fighting By HUNGER

20 days after their “hunger” strike at Press Enclave, the government finally listened to the ad-hoc lecturers and sent Education Minister Abdul Gani Malik to them along with Mubarak Gul. The relief came at a time when the colleges had almost short-listed their replacements. The teachers were overwhelmed as the end of the crisis came. They wanted to take Mubarak Gul on their shoulders but failed to do so! In the evening they hosted Iftaar party for newspersons, rolled the tents and left. If status quo was to be maintained, why did the government waste 20 days? It is a temporary ease because if they are still asked to teach six classes a day, they may again go for the strike. Permanent solutions needed.

Peaceful August 15

The August 15 celebrations this year had barely two interesting aspects. Firstly, the PDP leaders choose to travel the same day so that they skip the function that their arch rival Omar Abdullah presided over. Secondly, while the rival armies on the border exchanged sweets during the day, they started exchanging fire after the dusk. The rest was peaceful – deserted roads, informal curfew in certain areas, massive deployments, drop gates and ‘at home’ in the evening. There was no tri-colour unfurling in Lal Chowk. Even the main function was of less duration.

People were puzzled in Suchetgarh sector where BSF offered sweets to Rangers on August 14. Past midnight when August 15 set in, Rangers resorted to firing. But that did not prevent the rival armies from exchanging sweets on LoC in Poonch. It was almost an hour long affair at Chajan da Bagh when Lt Col Umar Gul of 653 Balouch Regiment came to greet Col B P Christopher of 21 Bihar.

The Iftaar POLITICS
Every Ramzan, the major news that Srinagar would create in New Delhi was when the separatist leaders in groups would reach the Pakistan embassy to attend the Iftaar party of the envoy. This year, not a single separatist leader turned up on Pakistan High Commissioner Shahid Malik’s invitation. But Kashmir was represented. Congress president Prof Saifuddin Soz was the most high profile Kashmiri.

Soz was actually part of the parliamentary team hosting a group of their counterparts from Pakistan, which is here participating the second round of Pakistan-India Parliamentarians’ Dialogue. He may not have been invited as a Kashmiri leader, but it is perhaps first time over past 20 years, that any mainstream Kashmiri leader was invited to any party at the Pakistan High Commission.

The comrade CONCERN

Communist lawmaker M Yusuf Tarigami is concerned over nothing much happening in Kashmir. In a news conference recently, he sought some political initiative to come from the Prime Minister especially the initiation of dialogue. He told reporters that none of the eight point CBMs initiated at the peak of 2010 crisis were implemented. He cried over the inquiry into the killings not revealing anything and condemned the continued arrests, as reported by the media. Many think the comrade should make these noises within the coalition of which he is a voter. May be he has failed on that front already?

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