The J&K government’s rehabilitation policy for former militants who crossed the LoC is an unfulfilled promise, says Baba Umar IN THE Urpara village of south Kashmir’s Shopian province, Abdul Rashid Dar, in his late 30s, is tilling the earth around the apple tree stumps in his orchard with a spade. His mother feeds the cattle while his father sips nun.
Forest officials are losing the battle against a well-oiled timber mafia that is stripping the Kashmir Valley of its green cover, reports Baba Umar A DIRT track snakes through a picturesque hill that is home to white poplar and willow trees. Camouflaged army trucks ferry gun-toting soldiers. Curious children with apple cheeks peek at passersby from mud huts: The.
British journalists Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark specialise in investigative journalism and have worked for UK’s The Sunday Times and The Guardian for nearly 18 years. Honoured with ‘Foreign Correspondents of the Year’ award in 2004 and ‘British Journalists of the Year’ award in 2009, they’ve co-authored three.
The J&K Public Safety Act is being misused rampantly to arrest young boys. Baba Umar reports WHEN Mohammad Rafiq Sheikh, a Class X student of DAV Public School in Srinagar, was picked up by unidentified men on 2 February, he couldn’t have imagined the ordeal that awaited him. Initially, Rafiq was detained at Zakoora Police Station, where he was booked.
As the Afghan endgame nears, Kashmir could feel the blowback. Baba Umar tracks how the LeT is trying to light the powder keg with new tactics and strategies ONE IS a tailor. Another is a college student. They are young, bold and come from different localities of Sopore town in north Kashmir. But the dots that connect the disparate group imply that they are.
The battlecry for Azadi has inspired more than a dozen Hindu youth to join the ranks of pro-Pakistan militant organisations. Baba Umar traces an unusual phenomenon IN ZOHAND village, perched on a mountaintop of Doda district in Jammu & Kashmir, Nilkant Kumar, 65, snakes his way through corn and walnut fields to reach his son’s grave. With a pensive look,.
The NC’s refusal to delegate power to the elected community leaders is undermining grassroots democracy, report Baba Umar and Riyaz Wani CHIEF MINISTER Omar Abdullah hailed last year’s panchayat polls in Jammu & Kashmir — held after a hiatus of 33 years — as a victory of democracy. Even the militant leaders grudgingly admitted the polls.
A former Hurriyat insider tells Baba Umar how the separatists have embezzled money meant for rebels IT ISN’T every day that you meet a man who has donned the hat of, a militant, an uncompromising protest-organiser for separatist groups, a goldsmith and a reform-minded sarpanch. Abdul Rashid Zargar (55) of Daraha Sangla village in Poonch district’s Surankote.
2,156 unidentified bodies in north Kashmir. The families want answers, but the J&K government is trying to give the issue a quiet burial. Baba Umar reports NOT TOO long ago, Kashmiris saw a ray of hope when Chief Minister Omar Abdullah announced that he would revoke the draconian Armed Forces Special Powers Act. However, he failed to walk the talk. The interlocutors’.
A strange, disabling affliction — undiagnosed, unnamed — has become the scourge of the people of a village in Poonch, says Baba Umar SURROUNDED BY mountains of the Pir Panjal range, Adai village in Poonch district of Jammu & Kashmir is a stranger to development. Like many other villages in the region, phrases like sick infrastructure, lack of transport, ailing.
