RAFIABAD
For Dillawar Mir, PDP secretary general the verdict by CBI court in Delhi convicted him to three years imprisonment and a 3.21 crore fine in a case of cheating and dishonesty has been a political paralysis. He had fraudulently managed a contract from National Fertilizers Ltd for handling the sale of the fertilizers at exorbitant rates in Haryana and Punjab. Though on bail, the verdict came when he was about to file his papers as a candidate for Rafiabad. He has won the seat six times but now he has resigned as secretary general and might field a relative in his place.
UDHAMPUR
Saddal hamlet that lived on six sq kms on the foothills in Pancheri belt caved in and vanished on September 4, when Kashmir was inundated. The government used every possible agency in last 46 days but could not recover bodies of 11 of the 40-persons. While 13 bodies were recovered by locals, heavy excavators later recovered 16 more. The operation is formally over. Now 11 missing persons would be declared presumed dead.
JAMMU
It was Pandit Nehru’s Home Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri who has introduced BJP formally into J&K well before the Congress took formal roots in the state, BJP leader Chaman Lal Gupta has revealed. After solving holy relic crisis in 1963, Shastri had felt the need for a national party in J&K and suggested Prem Nath Dogra founded Praja Parishad to merge with the Bharatiya Jan Sangh, that later became BJP.
LAHORE
What is interesting in An Isolated Incident, the debut novel by Pakistani-American Soniah Kamal is that the story of Zari Zoon, a Kashmir woman who went to Pakistan as a refugees and eventually landed in US. It explores the survival after the loss of family and ideals. Her novel that took 20 years to happen is outcome of a promise that she had made to her late Kashmiri grandfather. The novel is about Kashmir’s longstanding turmoil and the multi-generational impact of the conflict on one ordinary family.
KUNAN
After dispensing some cash in the name of compensation, the state government has gone to the Supreme Court against a High Court order that had directed compensation to the victims of 1991 Kunan-Poshpora mass rape. Now its counsel is pleading before the court and before passing any order, it should given some time till the Supreme Court considers the SLP. In 2012, the SHRC had recommended re-investigation, payment of Rs two lakh as ex-gratia to each of the victims and action against then Director Prosecution for closing the case in 1991 as untraced. The High Court, however, directed Special Investigating Team (SIT) probing the case to conclude the investigation with a reasonable dispatch.
RAJOURI
It took six hours for wildlife personnel to capture a leopard that barged into the Signal Unit of the Ace of Spades Division in the Rajouri town, last week. The unit has main bus stand and residential areas on three sides but the fourth side opens to a thick forest. By the time Safeer Shah, Rajouri’s Wildlife Warden reached the spot with cages, tranqualizers and other staff, army had failed to calm the animal. It was released back to the forests.
WASHINGTON
Robin Raphel, one of the US Assistant Secretary’s whose voiced against the massive use of force in Kashmir in 1990s is facing counterintelligence investigation in the US. During her various India visits, the vocal diplomat question J&K’s accession. She remained America’s advisor on Pakistan after she left the US State Department. Hired as a contractor in 2009 in Islamabad to oversee American development and civilian assistance to the country, she returned to Washington in 2012 and was working until September 2014 in the office of the US Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan at the State Department.
1200 fake votes in Khanyar were traced and trashed from the list.
Rs 15 Cr is the loss that SRTC suffered
