The former IAS officer said the main reason for not contesting the polls was to focus more on the mass contact programme.
Abdul Jan, the suspended policeman, who had flung a shoe towards Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on the Independence Day, resigned from service on Wednesday. "I have quit the job of police", Jan told mediapersons on reaching home in Ajas-Bandipora, 40 km from Srinagar, in North Kashmir.
The poll process for the second tier of the Panchayati Raj system will be completed by November 5, he said.
Some of the BJP panches and councillors who attended the meeting with Manoj Sinha said they were not impressed with what the new lieutenant governor told them.
The businessman, who travelled to Delhi to attend a Tablighi Jamaat congregation, died on March 26 in a Srinagar hospital, 19 days after he set off for the national capital. He could have infected scores of people during his travels and about 300 people have been put under quarantine because of him, officials said.
The eight-phase DDC polls, which began on November 28, is also the first election after Jammu and Kashmir's special status under Article 370 was revoked last year and it was reorganised into a Union Territory.
The dogs, who are fed regularly by the CRPF personnel, continued to bark, giving the personnel an idea that there were people hiding in a particular area.
Two Indian Army personnel were injured in a grenade explosion near the Line of Control in Gurez sector of North Kashmir's Bandipora district on Monday, a defence official said.
Braving inclement weather, Army aviation pilots on Monday airlifted the five injured soldiers from Macchil to Srinagar for specialised treatment. Unfortunately, all five brave hearts attained martyrdom, an army official said.
Major J Suresh Suri, who laid down his life in a gun battle with the terrorists in Bandipora in Jammu and Kashmir, was cremated with full military honors at Bansilalpet crematorium in his home city Hyderabad on Friday morning.
'It is a matter of concern. The number of forces on a 'naka' point is less and is normally in a remote area where they (terrorists) conceal themselves by coming along with civilians and then fire on the forces. We have faced losses and they have managed to flee a few times, but, we will soon find a response to this tactic and end this problem'
Seven militants, six of them foreigners, and an army jawan were killed and twelve others including eight civilians injured in three separate encounters across the Valley in Jammu and Kashmir, police said in Srinagar on Saturday. Based on specific information that a group of militants were moving in high altitude region between Bandipora and Kangan, the army launched a search and destroy operation on Friday, a police spokesman said.
Two officers -- Lt Colonel Mukesh Jha and Major Amardeep Singh -- are among the five injured army personnel.
A curfew-like situation prevailed in Kashmir as authorities deployed thousands of security personnel to scuttle any attempt by separatists, to march to Bandipora to disrupt the first phase of assembly elections, which began in ten constituencies of Jammu and Kashmir on Monday.Heavy deployment has been made in Srinagar and other major towns of the valley in view of a call -- 'Jehan election waha chalo' -- given by the Separatists.
Veteran Gujjar leader Aslam Choudhary, a six-time legislator, is engaged in a do-or-die contest to secure back the Congress' lost electoral turf in the mountain-locked Surankote constituency, which goes to polls in first phase on Monday.
Curfew remained in force in entire Srinagar district and Anantnag town on Saturday to thwart the separatists' plan to stage a two-day sit-in in the city centre even as the death toll in the ongoing unrest climbed to 56 in the Valley with the death of a youth injured in firing.
Malik and Jamiat-e-Ahli Hadees president Moulvi Showkat Shah were arrested in the wee hours on Thursday from their respective residences in Maisuma and Lal Bazaar areas of the city.
The bodies of four army personnel, including an officer, were recovered on Wednesday, taking the death toll due to the avalanche to six in Jammu and Kashmir. Four persons were still missing in Gurez sector of Bandipora district along the Line of Control, defence sources said.Army's rescue-cum-search teams have recovered the bodies of three jawans and an officer from the site of the snow avalanche in Gurez sector, the sources said.
The returning officer of Bandipora rejected the nomination papers filed by a Kashmiri undertrial in Delhi's Tihar Jail on the grounds that the Indian stamp paper on which he had used is legally invalid in the state.
Heavy snowfall has blanketed Kashmir, bringing relief to the residents from dry weather. The snowfall, which began in the late afternoon on Friday, has continued in most parts of the valley, said officials, adding it is one of the heaviest snowfalls in the recent years in the plains of Kashmir.
Security forces killed a top commander of Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed in a fierce encounter in north Kashmir early on Tuesday morning.
Security forces have intensified their efforts to flush out two militants holed up in a mosque in Jammu and Kashmir's Bandipora district since Monday, police sources said on Tuesday. The two militants took shelter in the mosque at Papchan village after trading gunfire with police and security forces last night.Acting on specific information, the police force, assisted by troops of the 57 Rashtriya Rifles and 92 battalion of the Central Reserve Police Force, raided the hideout
Major Taher Hussain Khan was laid to rest with full military honours
The improvised explosive device planted by militants at Badyara Ashtangoo on Sopore-Bandipora road went off when a Central Reserve Police Force vehicle ran over it around 8 am, injuring three jawans and three civilians.
Despite major successes against militants in Kashmir Valley so far this year, the recent rise in militant attacks in the state has put the security forces on the alert as more such strikes are expected during winter.
There will be eight more phases of Panchayat polls in Jammu and Kashmir.
Here's a recap of moments captured in India in the past 24 hours.
Suicides, particularly by women, are on the rise in Kashmir despite a fatwa by the Muslim ulema declaring it 'unIslamic' and against the teachings of Prophet Mohammed.
A major tragedy was on Thursday averted with the timely detection of a live grenade by police at a crowded bus stand in Bandipura district, official sources said.
Accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party of playing politics over providing relief to flood victims of Jammu and Kashmir, Congress party President Sonia Gandhi on Friday said the ruling party at the Centre promised the sky but did not follow it up with action.
No injuries were reported in the incident, defence sources said.
Geelani claimed since there was no change in the ground situation even after the initiation of a comprehensive dialogue between New Delhi and Islamabad, its suspension would make no difference.
An encounter with militants was continuing in Baramulla.
The encounter broke out when troops confronted a group of militants trying to sneak into the valley from across the border.
Aurangzeb, who was in blue jeans and t-shirt was being asked by suspected Hizbul Mujahideen terrorists about his duties, posting and encounters in which he participated in 1.15 minutes video probably shot in a forest area, they said.
The two army personnel accused of attempting to rape a minor girl inside her house at Kunan in Bandipora on Tuesday are in police custody.
Qasim, a Lashkar leader and terrorist, had planned the attack on a Border Security Force convoy in Udhampur on August 5.
The two Jaish-e-Mohammed militants, arrested in Delhi two days ago, were planning to carry out attacks in Delhi with the help of their associates and had procured 2 kg of RDX from Deoband in Uttar Pradesh, police said on Wednesday.
Three members of a family and a child were among the seven people killed while security forces seized huge quantities of arms and ammunition across Jammu and Kashmir during the past 24 hours, an official spokesman said on Sunday.
