Home Minister P Chidambaram had a photo session with 160 boys and girls from J&K, last week. In eight groups of twenty each, they were sent on ‘watan ko janou’ by State

Rehabilitation Council and Social Welfare Department and MHA funded the project under Youth Exchange Programme. The youth in 15-24 age group visited Kolkata, Chennai, Ahmadabad, Hyderabad, Jaipur, and Mumbai. Later in Delhi they shared their experiences with the leaders in the capital. The photo shoot was the conclusion of the trip. State’s Social Welfare Minister Ms Sakina Itoo was the part of the function who thanked MHA for sponsoring the event.

JAMMU
Police arrested seven persons including three children, two men and a young woman. Five of them are a family comprising Beerwa resident Saleem Bhat, his wife Ashima, a resident of Karachi and their three children – Shafwan (7), Shoma (6), and Hamza (3). Saleem had gone across and married there. They finally decided to return taking Nepal route. In Jammu, they were arrested from a Jewal Chowk hotel. Abdul Majeed who had driven to Jammu from Beerwa to receive the family has also been arrested. Nazir, another Beerwa resident who also accompanied Saleem to PaK was also arrested. He had also married a Karachi girl but was divorced. It is not immediately known if Saleem had availed the state’s new rehabilitation scheme.

KARACHI

The Collaborator author Waheed Mirza was not in the Jaipur Literary Festival apparently because there was no session on Kashmir. There was a session on prison diaries. But Mirza was a star attraction at the Karachi Literary Festival where Kamila Shamsie moderated his session. Mirza read from his book and later humourously commented that he was feeling a bit ‘wrecked’ and it wasn’t helped by the music at the festival. Kashmir, he said, has a long tradition of writing on the area but because his and Basharat Peer’s book was in English, it got more coverage. At the end of the session somebody asked him about a solution to Kashmir. Mirza responded bluntly: “Everything else has been tried and hasn’t worked”.

DELHI

Footballers Sajid Dar and Hilal Rasool Parrey have been selected as A licence coaches by the Asian Football Confederation. Dar is the only Kashmir coach engaged in the national team (U-19). Parrey was a spotter to the All India Football Federation (U-14) festival in West Bengal. Prior to getting selected as coaches Dar played in J&K Santosh Trophy side. He is now in charge of Kashmir university side.

SRINAGAR
High Court has granted anticipatory bail to former BOSE Deputy Director Academics Mehraj-ud-Din Zargar, who is accused of writing examination for former Education Minister Peerzada’s foster son in 2009. Crime Branch of the police have already concluded its investigation in the case and submitted its report to the government. Police have not registered a case. Reports suggest the Crime Branch has indicted six BOSE officials for helping minister’s son after the forensic experts confirmed two hand writings on three answer scripts of the minister’s foster son. While Zargar has written the brat’s Urdu papers, Imtiyaz Ahmad has written his Mathematics and Geography papers.

SRINAGAR

His murder triggered the 2010 unrest but it continues to be an unsolved mystery. After 20 months of his killing, swabs from his corpse are being sent for forensic tests. The samples had been collected within a day of his death for carrying out Gun Shot Residue (GSR) test to establish the weapon that was used in his killing at Rajouri Kadal on June 11, 2010. The swabs are being dispatched to Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Trombay, the only facility that is equipped to carry out the test. This test has become vital in wake of frustrating response by police about who killed the boy. The case is pending with a court in Srinagar.

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