Archives for 2019

The prisoners are those who have served their sentences but continued to remain in jail for not paying their fine amount.

LUCJKNOW: Seventy-three prisoners will walk free on Independence Day on Thursday from various jails in Uttar Pradesh. The prisoners are those who have served their sentences but continued to remain in jail for not paying their fine amount.

Principal Secretary (Home) Avanish Kumar Awasthi said that necessary directives have been sent to the concerned jails for their release.

The 73 prisoners are presently lodged in jails in Meerut, Kanpur, Moradabad, Aligarh, Bareilly, Hamirpur, Chitrakoot, Sultanpur, Mirzapur, Varanasi, Mathura, Ayodhya, Agra, Orai, Unnao, Hardoi, Fatehgarh, Lucknow, Kannauj, Sitapur, Gonda, Sonebhadra, Jhansi, Ghaziabad and Rae Bareli.

The state government, as a routine, releases such prisoners on occasions like Independence Day, Gandhi Jayanti and Republic Day.

PM Modi had mentioned about Bangladesh’s struggle with terrorism while outlining the need of global powers uniting to eradicate the menace of terrorism from the world.

PHULBARI (WEST BENGAL): Sweets were exchanged at India-Bangladesh border between Border Security Force (BSF) and Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB) to mark the 73rd Independence Day of India.

Personnel of the border guarding forces have traditionally exchanged sweets on religious and national festivals of the two countries as a mark of goodwill gestures.

Earlier during his Independence Day address, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had also mentioned about Bangladesh’s struggle with terrorism while outlining the need of global powers uniting to eradicate the menace of terrorism from the world.

However, a similar exchange of sweets between the Border Security Force (BSF) and Pakistan Rangers personnel did not take place yesterday at Attari-Wagah Border in Punjab on the occasion of Pakistan Independence Day.

Barring a few occasions when the diplomatic relations were at low, the sweets have been traditionally exchanged between India and its neighbour through security forces stationed at the border.

Locals seem to be unhappy with the grant of Union territory status to Kashmir and they feel the move will now allow illegal immigrants, largely from Myanmar, and nearly 12 lakh migratory labourers.

JAMMU: A large section of residents in this Hindu-dominated town are angered with the revocation of Article 370, which granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir.

In a big triumph for the government, both the Houses of the Parliament last week passed the JamKashmirmu and Kashmir Reorganisation Bill, 2019, and adopted the resolution to scrap Article 370 and Article 35A, paving way for bifurcation of the state into two Union Territories (UTs) – Jammu and Kashmir with an Assembly and Ladakh sans one.

However, many residents of Jammu say the striking down of Article 370 has downgraded the status of Jammu region from a state to a Union Territory.

Secondly, they feel the move will now allow illegal immigrants, largely from Myanmar, and the nearly 12 lakh migratory labourers from Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal, to become entitled for permanent resident certificates, which so far only the native residents of the state had the privilege to acquire.

“People were demanding state status for Jammu. Now the Central government has downgraded its status by declaring it as a Union Territory. Is this justice for the locals,” asked octogenarian Sita Ram Khajuria, who has been settled in Jammu since his childhood.

He said the local BJP leadership, which too was perplexed with this decision, was just hailing Prime Minister Narendra Modi to save their face. “Article 370, which has been revoked now, was diluted in the real sense so many times in the past. The Congress leadership in the state did this diplomatically by using leaders of Kashmir in diluting its provisions in 1962, 1964 and 1965.

“In April 1965, even the late Mufti Mohammad supported the Congress government led by G.M. Sadiq for amending the state Constitution that empowered the President of India to nominate the head of the state (Governor) from among anyone in India. The Constitution amendment, in fact, diluted the true spirit of Article 370,” Khajuria explained.

Representatives of the local hospitality industry rue that the security build-up with the scrapping of Article 370 and the jamming the internet and mobile connectivity have badly dented their business. “These days the occupancy in most of the hotels in Jammu is less than 10 per cent. Normally, the hotels have more than 50 per cent occupancy this time of the year,” hotelier Dinesh Gupta told IANS.

He said the government has created fear-psychosis among the tourists by converting the town into a cantonment. “Also, suspending the Amarnath pilgrimage following revealation by the Army that they have recovered multiple weapons belonging to Pakistan Army from the Amarnath route has led to the cancellation of more than 50 per cent of the bookings in each hotel,” Gupta added.

Balwinder Sharma, cashier at the south Indian food chain Sagar Ratna, said that daily sales in the eating joint has been reduced to merely Rs 3,000-Rs 4,000 from Rs 20,000 earlier. “There is no online delivery from the restaurant since August 5 (when Article 370 was scrapped) owing to jamming of mobile phone and wireless internet connections across the town,” he said.

Another resident and Sikh Intellectual Circle Chairman Narinder Singh Khalsa said the BJP was just befooling the locals in the name of Article 370. “The BJP in the centre has failed on all fronts. Now they are just trying to divert the public’s attention from the country’s grim economic scenario by propagating that people of Jammu and Kashmir will benefit from the abrogation of Article 370,” he said.

“We the people of Jammu will suffer because of this decision that was taken in a totally undemocratic manner, because people from outside the state will now be lured to Jammu to buy land in the guise of setting up an industrial unit or a tourist resort,” Khalsa added.

Contrary to him, pathologist Sumedha Mengi said that earlier there were fewer opportunities for medical students belonging to the state. “Earlier, the students were entitled to compete in medical examinations for colleges located within the state along with two other colleges — PGI in Chandigarh and AIIMS in New Delhi. With the scrapping of Article 370, they will get the opportunity to get admissions at the all-India level,” she said.

The local unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) wants some restrictions to be put in place in the state on the purchase of land by “outsiders” as well as their appointments in government jobs. “We want a safeguard like a domicile certificate so as to protect the interests of the locals with respect to land and state jobs,” senior BJP leader and legislator Nirmal Singh said.

For Kashmiri pandits, striking down of Article 370, which abrogated Kashmir’s special privileges, by the Central government has nothing to do with their rehabilitation.

JAMMU: Though living in ‘forced exile’ within their own state for over three decades now, the longing to return to their homeland in the turmoil-hit Kashmir Valley has not waned among a majority of the Kashmiri Pandits in this Hindu-dominated town.

“I still am eager to set foot on the soil that we were forced to leave long back,” said Shobha Kaul, an octogenarian woman living in Kashmir’s winter capital since the 1990s.

She has been living in this town, ringed by forest-clad low mountains along with her family, since the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits in the 1990s, after fleeing their homes in the troubled Valley because of the terror attacks that were targeted against the community that time.

For them striking down of Article 370, which abrogated Kashmir’s special privileges, by the Central government has nothing to do with their rehabilitation.

“Article 370 abolition will not guarantee evolving of harmonious relationship between the Muslims and the Kashmiri Pandits. In fact, it is creating anger and unrest in a particular community,” Kaul said.

“Our brothers and sisters in the Valley should be honourably won over through non-discriminatory policies before ensuring our return to our homeland,” she added.

Another woman Lalita Pandit said she was born in a small village on the outskirts of Srinagar. “I miss the snowy mountains and orchards,” an emotional Lalita told IANS at the Raghunath Temple here, where she is a regular at morning prayers.

Jammu hosts thousands of Kashmiri Pandit refugees, who have been living in newly build two-room tenements provided to them by the state government.

Octogenarian woman Nirmala Bhatt said: “Before I die, I want to return to my first home that is now under illegal occupation of a Muslim family.”

She said: “Every Kashmiri Pandit has hopes of returning to the homeland one day. I owe my gratitude to people of Jammu, where I have lived most of my elderly life.”

With fond memories of her homeland, the 81-year-old has raised a new generation and they too want to return to the Kashmir Valley.

“We have struggled hard to raise our children by initially staying in refugee camps for years. Now, I have grandchildren, who were born and brought up here and they too are keen to return to our homeland,” she added.

However, the children born and brought up in Jammu are more hopeful of returning to the Valley than the older generation.

“My parents and grandparents often talked about their cottages amidst apple and plum orchards by showing black and white photos of their happier times. We see a ray of hope of our return sooner rather than later,” college student Nikita Dhar, who is living in Jagti, the biggest refugee housing complex for Kashmiri Pandits in Jammu, said.

For the young generation like Nikita, returning to their ancestral homes, which they have never seen, is their dream now.

“This is our aspiration and struggle too,” she added.

Another Kashmir Pandit, S.N. Pandita, 69, said: “Before fleeing from south Kashmir’s Shopian in the early 1990s, we were threatened and tortured by the militants. They destroyed our temples and illegally occupied our houses and orchards.”

According to him, Kashmir is “our hometown and Kashmir can’t grow minus Kashmiri Pandits, who are part and parcel of the Muslims for centuries”.

He said before revoking Article 370 tension was lessening. “We see an escalation of tension once again and don’t know how much time it will take to normalise the situation there,” he added.

For the displaced Kashmiri Pandits, the Centre had announced the Prime Minister’s Development Package on November 7, 2015.

Under this package, the Central government had approved the creation of 3,000 additional state government jobs for the Kashmiri migrants at a cost of Rs 1,080 crore, and the construction of 6,000 transit accommodations in the Kashmir Valley at a cost of Rs 920 crore for the stay of these employees.

The aim of this package was to help the displaced community economically, and also to initiate a step towards their return to the valley.