INITIATED: Gujarat State Petronet Ltd (GSPL) led consortium is laying 3900 kms, three cross country inter-state natural gas pipelines. The three lines – The Mallavaram – Bhilwara (1611 km), Mehsana –Bhatinda (1688 km) and Bhatinda – Jammu (512 km), will require an investment of Rs 12,500 crore to develop the capacity to carry around 95 million cubic metres per day of gas.
BUTCHERED: Militants beheaded nomad Abdul Ghani after kidnapping him. Accused of being an informer, his body was found in two parts in Doonmarg village of Kishtiwar.
CONVICTED: Principal Sessions Judge Kathua, Jang Bhadur Singh Jamwal awarded 20 years rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 2 lakh to a narcotics smuggler Jarnail Masih, a resident of Uchhiwassi Hoshiarpur, Punjab. He had hidden 384 kgs of poppy straw powder in his truck under 311 bundles of popular veneer core.
PLANNED: The government is setting up a high level task force to carry out a comprehensive study of its public sector undertakings, majority of which are in the red. Economic adviser to the state Jalil A Khan would head the penal.
ANNOUNCED: LAHDC Leh has ordered enquiry into the delay in completion of the main irrigational canal of Upshi Pashmina Farm. It houses 600 Pashmina goats besides possessing 1.5 lakh trees and Alfa-alfa fodder on 2000 kanals of land that provides a yearly income of Rs 55 lakh to the council.
WON: Makhan Lal Zutshi, a former PDD employee, was elected a Panch in Pulwama’s Tahab village in the ongoing Panchayat polls.
PROTESTED: Police have launched investigations into the allegations that two teachers of the Police Public School in Bemina made a molestation bid on a tenth standard student when the school was on picnic. It had created a severe law and order problem after school administration ignored students’ demand to punish the duo. Many students were injured in the police action.
ANNOUNCED: J&K Bank said it is India’s number one bank having the highest NPA provisioning in the industry. It has Rs 53.24 crore of net NPA which makes it one of the lowest in the sector with only 0.20 percent of the impaired assets.
CRITICAL: Kashmiri stag Hangul continues to be critically endangered as only 43 were added to its population of 175 since 2009. The stag is covered under Species Recovery Plan, a 22 crore project for five years. Hangul census came at a time when the government is considering plans to have a zoo in Srinagar.
CONVICTED: Srinagar’s Principal District and Sessions Court awarded seven years rigorous imprisonment to a rapist Abdul Qayoom Mir of Goripora, Safa Kadal. He had raped a minor on September 2, 2000. CJM Srinagar in another case rejected bail to Hilal Ahmad Machloo of Hamdaniya Colony of Bemina who is accused of raping a minor being taught by his sister.
APOLOGIZED: An European Union delegation that on recent visit to Kashmir cancelled their meetings with Syed Ali Geelani and High Court Bar Association has apologized to the latter. EU Ambassador, Daniele SMADJA has sent a letter to HCBA general secretary suggesting the EU is ready to meet the Bar at any other occasion.
COMMITTED: Maya, wife of Col Ganesh was found hanging at her residence in Northern Command area in Udhampur. Earlier in July 2007, body of Capt Meghna Razdan was also found hanging from a ceiling fan at her residence in Kunjwani army camp in Jammu.
GRANTED: Sessions Court in Srinagar has granted 12 weeks time to police to execute the arrest warrant against the renowned US-based cardiologist, Dr Fayaz Shawl, against whom state government has filed a defamation suit. Shawl is US citizen who lives in Maryland. He is facing a law suit for levelling corruption charges against the minister of state for Housing and Urban Development, Nasir Aslam Wani.
DEPLOYED: BSF is deploying its women soldiers along state’s 198-kms borders with Pakistan to check the smuggling of arms and narcotics. .
STOPPED: High-speed, 3G mobile telephony services may not take off in J&K because of radio disturbances from across the border. Four private cellular operators – Bharti Airtel Ltd, Reliance Communications Ltd, Aircel Ltd and Idea Cellular Ltd – that won 3G spectrum licences for the state for over Rs 150 crore, have complained to the DoT that they face severe interference on their frequencies as Pakistani operators are using the same band.
CHANDIGAH: Judge Ms Ritu Tagore in whose court the CBI is trying the accused of the infamous Srinagar sleaze racket has rejected former minister and senior Congress leader Ghulam Ahmad Mir’s plea to discharge him. Mir is a sitting MLA representing Dooru.
In his petition Mir had submitted that CBI could not establish his and other persons’ involvement because it lacks evidence against them as most of the witnesses have retracted their statements and turned hostile.
As such, he submitted, there is no solid reason to further investigate the case. CBI counsel, however, contested the arguments saying the agency is in possession of substantial evidences on which the prosecution would be able to prove these allegations. On this ground his plea was rejected.
The 2004 case involved a number of biggies from J&K. The case was transferred to Chandigarh for trial against all the accused. Most of the witnesses in the case have turned hostile and retracted their statements.
SARHAND: Ishfaq Ahmed Sidiqui, a youth residing in HMT died in Punjab. Disturbed after death of his parents in quick succession, Sidiqui was frequently visiting shrines to find solace. His unemployment had added to his woes. He was found dead in Kanda (Hushiarpur) while visiting the shrine at Sarhand. Doctors who examined him said dehydration caused his death. His corpse was driven to Lakhanpur on the request of J&K police.
FARIDABAD: Syed Arshad Abbas, a 27-year-old doctor was killed with nine others when an air-ambulance flying a patient from Patna to Delhi crashed in Faridabad. A resident of Nowlari village (Pattan) Abbas was pursuing his fellowship in emergency medicine at Delhi’s Apollo Hospital.
The aircraft was hired by the hospital to ferry a critical patient to Delhi. The aircraft crashed on a two story building at around 10.30 in the night killing seven on board and three on ground. Abbas’s duty included emergency medical evacuation and rescue of critically ill patients.
JAMMU : Luxmi Mudanaik, wife of Deputy Chief Engineer D G Madanaik of Konkan Railways Corporation Limited (KRCL) was caught by state police at Jammu airport for carrying one million rupees.
Cash was detected in various bundles in her petticoat during frisking. The couple on way to Kerala were quizzed by IT sleuths but permitted to board the flight. Initially, the woman said the cash belonged to her husband but later retracted her statement saying it was her earning through fashion designing.
Madanaik is posted at Reasi to implement the Udhampur-Baramulla railway line. The couple surrendered the entire cash to the IT sleuths at Bangalore airport as ‘undisclosed income’.
DELHI : It has been an interesting turn of events. As BJP’s Nagrota MLA Jugal Kishore was busy batting in the factional feud of his party over cross-voting, an almost forgotten skeleton stumbled out of the cupboard. NHRC has directed Jugal’s arrest in an 11-year-old murder case involving the death of Raj Singh.
Directions have gone to the state government to register cases against the then Station Houser Officer (SHO) Jhajjar Kotli, Investigation Officer (IO) and Additional Superintendent of Police Rural Jammu.
When police found the body of Singh on March 30, 1999 near Tawi Bridge, his relatives accused Jugal for the murder. The police closed the case on March 28, 2006 saying that there is no evidence against the persons charged for the murder. Slain ex-serviceman father approached NHRC that after a series of hearings directed Jugal’s arrest. It has recommended handing over the investigation to CBI.
KOKERNAG : Police finally rounded up the 17-year-old Arif Ahangar who in an inhuman case strangulated to death an eight-old-boy after sodomizing him in the forests. He has been booked under section 302 RPC. Dagroo had gone missing from the Kokernag forest on May 15 where he and his three friends had gone to fetch apricots. His corpse was found the next day alongside the Dagri stream.
The accused, according to police has confessed to the crime. Currently in police remand, police is trying to get the exact details of his age and conduct. Arif has been a school dropout. Muzaffar’s killing is one of the shocking incidents that are gradually becoming a routine in strife-torn Kashmir.
