JOINED: A former Army officer, Brig (Retired) K S Jaswal joined the ruling National Conference at a function organised at NC headquarters in Srinagar. Jaswal served as the sub-area commander in Pathankot.
SNAPPED: The Plasu bridge in Arnas collapsed suddenly cutting off Mahore Sub-Division from Reasi district headquarters. The bridge collapsed while a truck was crossing the bridge. No one was hurt.
ARRESTED: The City police arrested seven key members of a gang of manhole lid thieves. The thieves were caught stealing lids from the drains at Saazgaripora. The gang would sell the stolen lids as scrap.
APPROVED: The Cabinet approved creation of a special court for trial and disposal of the cases investigated by CBI in the state. The cabinet also approved the construction of 4-lane pre-stressed bridge (4th Tawi Bridge) downstream of the existing bridge over River Tawi at Jammu with an estimated cost of Rs 147 crore.
BOOKED: The vigilance organisation booked six persons – four revenue officials and two businessmen – in Reasi district in connection with stamp duty evasion to the tune of Rs 9.5 crore. The accused had fraudulently prepared and issued incomplete and misleading revenue extract of a six acres land situated at Kundorian village in Katra.
DENIED: J&K Legislative Assembly denied information about alleged encroachment of 350 kanals of land by MP Chowdhary Lal Singh in Kathua district to an applicant Meraj-ud-Din Sheikh of Khansahib, Budgam who had sought the information under RTI. He has now filed a complaint before the State Information Commission.
SHIFTED: Dukhtaran-e-Millat (DeM) chief Asiya Andrabi has been shifted from Kot Balwal Jail Jammu, to Srinagar Central Jail on High Court orders.
PUSHED: The Border Security Force opened fire on Pakistani wood-cutters who were “trying to sneak” into Rajouri district along the Line of Control. The troopers opened fire to push back the intruders, BSF officials said.
CONTINUES: The liquid bio-medical waste of SK Institute of Medical Sciences continues to pollute the Anchar Lake as it is not disposed off scientifically. Only one incinerator is functional at the only tertiary care hospital in the valley.
BOOKED: State Vigilance Organisation challaned former chief town planner, senior town planner and three others in the multi-crore Pahalgam land scandal. The accused de-notified sub zone A-14 to permit the construction of hutments and other facilities in the master plan of Pahalgam town leading to sharp hike in the land cost.
DIED: A police inspector died after remaining in coma for more than a week. Shabir Ahmad, 42, was shot outside his residence on June 29. He is survived by a wife and two children. Meanwhile, militants detonated a landmine outside a police station at Sopore, leaving nine cops injured, two of them critical.
RECEIVED: The government has received 4000 applications from migrant Kashmiri Pandit families for their return to the valley. “They would be provided all the facilities under the package if they return,” Relief Commissioner, Vinod Koul said. Any returning family will have to surrender its ‘migrant status.’
RELEASED: CM Omar Abdullah released a coffee table book titled “Handicrafts of Kashmir”, published by the Army’s counter-insurgency Kilo Force. The CM appreciated their role to celebrate the beauty and intricacy of Kashmir’s handicrafts and textiles.
SUBMITTED: The government will submit the ropeway project proposal at Patnitop hill resort to the Environment Ministry for mandatory clearance. The 2.6 km-long aerial ropeway with 23 trolleys will pass through Dudu forest range and is almost one-km away from Sudhmahadev Conservation Reserve.
CONCLUDED: The J&K Police Martyrs’ Memorial Football Tournament was won by JK Forest-XI, who beat Punjab Police in the finals by a solitary goal at Bakshi Stadium in Srinagar.
RECOVERED: The Pakistani police recovered an unidentified body from River Chenab near Sialkot tehsil. They said he might have drowned in River Chenab in Jammu and Kashmir and floated down the river into the Pakistani territory.
CLOSED: The Government Primary School in Takiya Busserbugh in Ganderbal district stands closed since the retirement of its lone female teacher in 2008. The parents have withdraw their wards from the defunct school.
BUSTED: Police arrested 13 people, including four womenin the sex trade racket in Nida hotel Srinagar. Eight women have been found involved in the racket. The ring leader of the women, however, is still at large. Police investigation reveals that some of them were lured on the pretext of jobs by the hotel management but ended up being part of the racket.
RECOVERED: The CBI unearthed a fraud worth Rs 20.5 lakh committed by J&K Grameen Bank officials. The accused have been booked and the entire amount recovered.
SKICC: It was just a musical evening aimed at generating funds for Kashmir Leprosy Association. And then a controversy erupted that helped it to get the attention. At the end of it collections were at Rs 51100 that included Rs 15000 which Sajad Lone contributed. The concert was organized by the students of Kashmir University’s Business School. As they named the initiative as ‘Ilhaam’ they were accused of desecration. The idea was cancelled. Later they revived it and named it Aagaaz. In between there was media blitzkrieg suggesting that the organizers were threatened by radical Islamists. The event took place and those performed included Kashmir’s rap sensation M C Kash, Saim Bhat who has sung two number in Emraan Hashmi starrer Murder 2 and Mohammad Muheem who is the lead vocalist of a Pune-based band called Highway 61 Fame. Nobody knows if the police have taken note of the ‘threats’ or these were aimed at creating a profile by way of free publicity.
JAMMU : Apparently over a tiff with her husband, Mrs Paramjeet sprinkled kerosene over her body and set her self afire in Bakhshi Nagar. Doctors did their best she could not survive beyond three days with eighty percent burns. Soon after her death, her husband Puran Singh went to the GMC’s top floor and jumped to death. The couple are survived by two minors – daughter, 9, and son, 6. Her parents had accused Pooran of harassing her especially when drunk. The hospital witnessed another gory incident when Tripta Bhola, a BSNL official and her son Dr Hemant Kumar Bhola, 25 died of food poisoning. They had consumed special flour used on fasting days.
LEH : Part of Aamir’s Khan’s 3-idiots was shot in the Druk White Lotus School (Druk Padma Karpo Institute) at Shey that was damaged in 2010 cloudbursts. School principal Prasad Eledath says 19 rooms including the computer laboratory and elementary classes block were damaged. The Rancho’s school is now on the path of recovery and it is getting a lot of attention from the stakeholders including tourists. It has currently a roll of 620. It runs second branch in Khachhey near Kargil. Given the tourist interest in the school, the union tourism ministry is planning to rope in Bollywood to promote certain locations. The plan is under discussion with the NFDC.
NOWHATTA: It was something that the fire sufferers did not expect – the visit of heavyweights Syed Ali Geelani and Mufti M Sayeed. As many as 17 households were devastated when their houses were razed to ground in a daylight conflagration last week. Geelani met every single family and later advised them to “demonstrate courage and patience over the losses.” Mufti sympathised with all and suggested that the old city requires decongestion that would minimise losses in mishaps like this. He turned nostalgic about the area because he lived as a paying guest in the area when he was studying in the erstwhile Oriental (Islamia) College.
PAMPORE: The highway town remained disrupted after protests broke out over the arrest of Bilal Ahmad Sofi who has been detained under PSA. Police accused him of being behind the 2010 disturbances in the town. There was stone pelting as well in which a Srinagar student was injured. Even the highway remained disturbed for some time. Sofi had fled his home in wake of repeated raids on his house and had returned recently.
KUPWARA : Srinagar NGO HELP Foundation brought Bollywood actress and social worker, Nafeesa Ali to inaugurate a school building in Khumriyal. It was constructed for Shah Anwar Memorial Secondary School with the support from Action India (Trust). The school is meant for underprivileged children of Lolab. The function was attended by a number of women from the area who belonged to the underprivileged class. Some of them were offered relief.
