WRITE-UPS

Insha Mushtaq/ Umar Farooq Back in 1995, when Raja Begum was a young lady from Khiram Anantnag and was a mother to six daughters, her husband Mohammad Sultan was kidnapped from his house and later killed by unknown gunmen. A lawyer by profession, Mohammad Sultan, was a member of Jamat-e-Islamia. He had contested elections in 1987 from the Bijbehara constituency as a candidate of the Muslim United Front. ALSO READ: Jammu Kashmir Administration Sacks Two Sons of Hizb Chief, Nine Others He also worked in the High Court, Srinagar. On August 14, 1995, after he returned from Srinagar to Anantnag, he was kidnapped from his home during the night hours. His dead body was retrieved the next day near a village. Raja Begum, now in her eighties, is in a state of complete shock and trauma aft...

Kounsar Bashir / Vikram Raj In the discussions related to caste and reservation among the elite people of metropolitan cities, it often comes out that casteism has ended in the twenty-first century, and now the time has come that the government should give reservation by looking at the economic status and not the caste. Is it true ? After such discussions, we often ignore the caste discrimination of today's India. Whereas the truth is that even today caste discrimination is followed vigorously in many areas of our country. Bathani Tola Massacre 1996 On July 11, 1996, not long after late morning, the Ranveer Sena, a private volunteer army of Bhumihar landowners, slaughtered 21 Dalits and Muslims, 20 of whom were women and kids, in Bathani Tola, a village in Bhojpur region, Bi...

Kounsar Bashir/ Firdous Qadri Carrying her child in her arms, A lonely woman staged a protest in the press colony area of Srinagar on Saturday morning, demanding her husband to be released or shifted to Srinagar Central jail from Udhampur. The woman who identified herself as identified as Saba, a Batamaloo resident, claimed that her husband has been lodged at Udhampur jail for the last three years. Speaking to The Kashmiriyat over the phone saba said that her husband called her three years ago informing her, "I have been detained and lodged in Udhampur Jail. I have been falsely implicated in some case." She said that immediately after the arrest, she was forced out of her in-laws' house when she was pregnant and was barely one month away from delivering a child. "My husband Irf...

Mehran Bhat/ Aadil Manzoor In the wee hours of June 27, two Unmanned Aerial vehicles (UAV) laden with explosives crashed into Jammu station of the Indian Air force. They caused minor damage to the roof of a building in which two IAF personnel sustained minor injuries. The attacks by these vehicles rattled the Security agencies and forced them to impose restrictions on the use of drones in parts of the valley. As per the agencies, the UAVs are being used to smuggle weapons and narcotics at the areas nearing Pakistan border. They are also being used to keep a watch on the movement of troops along the border. Authorities fear that there could be an increase in drone attacks as they are hard to detect due to their small size and low flying abilities. This recent drone attack in Jammu has jolte...

Jahangeer Ganie June 2015 was unusual in Kashmir. A photograph of otherwise Militants operating underground in Kashmir appeared on Social media, causing deep concern among the Security officials in the valley and elsewhere. The photograph was that of Burhan Wani surrounded by his 10 associates clicked somewhere in the orchards of Shopian's Zainapora belt, as per Security officials. The photograph revealed 11 militants posing boldly without masks in front of the camera in contrast to earlier times when they remained hidden and did not reveal much. The photo had become hugely popular among youth. The consecutive years in Kashmir saw a massive upsurge in the number of youths taking up Arms.  The numbers reached 88 in 2016, in 2017, the number rose further to 126 and in 2018, 218 Local y...

Fizala Khan Among the myriad cases of Armed Force's brutality, is this, wherein, on July 06, 2010 in a merciless manner, the armed forces killed Muzaffar Ahmed Bhat (17), Fayaz Ahmed Wani (28), and Fancy Jan (25) in Srinagar, Kashmir. The chronology of the three killings followed when on July 05, 2010, in Gangbug area of Batamaloo, Srinagar. Muzaffar Ahmed Bhat went missing on the evening of 5th July, when the CRPF and the police were pursuing away a gathering of young men after a stone-pelting protest, nearby. The Armed Forces fired bullets at the gathering without provocation. The terrified 11th graders jumped into a drainage canal, in desperation of escaping the bullets. Bhat, who could swim, did not reach his residence. At sunrise, his body was discovered floating in a stre...

Imran Boniyari On 12 May 2021, a heinous case was reported in North Kashmir's Baramulla town when video showing the use of force by Additional Deputy Commissioner (ADC) Baramulla during coronavirus lockdown has gone viral. The officer can be seen beating the men and women with a stick. The ADC in the video was seen walking on the streets of Baramulla district along with his staff, mostly sticks in their hands. He was seen beating the people without enquiring anything from them. The video also showed the officer entering a butchers shop and beating him with a stick. Government has claimed that the strict action will be taken if found guilty but in reality nobody knows the actual status of the enquiry initiated against him and what was the result of the same. In November 2020, a ...

Vikram Raj/ Kounsar Bashir Petroleum and Diesel rates rose by 35 paise and 18 paise per liter on Monday, as indicated by a value notice from state-possessed fuel retailers. As diesel cost climbed for the 33rd time in the last two months alone, on Sunday, the price of the fuel reached Rs 100 for each liter, Jammu Kashmir was no exception. Various states where the petroleum cost is higher than Rs 100 for each liter are - Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Bihar, Panjab and Ladakh. The marked increase in global crude oil prices, as a result of the major economies like the United States, Europe and China getting back into the track after suffering a major blow due to the pandemic, has impacted this increase in petr...

Kounsar Bashir On June 28, a massive controversy erupted in Kashmir where some members of the local Sikh community waged a Morcha against 'Love Jihad'. The Morcha was led by Manjinder Singh Sirsa, Leader of Akali Dal and President of Delhi Sikh Gurudwara Management Community alleging a forced Nikah, abduction, and conversion of Sikh girls forced into marrying old Muslim men. The controversy put decades-long relations into a pause and several people from both the communities were at loggerheads, trying to overpower the narratives of each other. Statistically, Sikhs, who are a micro-minority community in Kashmir comprising nearly 0.88 percent population of Kashmir. Inarguably, both the communities have lived the decades of conflict in solidarity, love and harmony. According to...

Danishwar Hameed/ Qazi Shibli Batting two down, 18 runs off 26 Balls, Zakir Bashir hit one to the Point and was caught by a fielder of Laibal Sports. It was the 28th of June and Zakir started preparing for the next match, but not before he would finish spraying chemicals in his apple orchard. On Wednesday, Zakir got fresh early up, and walked his way with his brother to his orchard in the Czimmer, Kulgam District. By 12 noon, he was home for lunch. "He spoke to the family about the day's work and said he had to go for cricket practice. By lunchtime, word had spread that the Forces had cordoned off the locality." Before the family could get a sense of the unexpected and spontaneous turn of events, Zakir had been shot dead. An official statement on the incident read, "Acting on s...