An aerial survey of the Baltal-Amarnath holy cave route does not reveal any road widening or construction work being undertaken by the Jammu and Kashmir government in the ecologically fragile Himalayan region as alleged by hardline Hurriyat Conference.
Four Amarnath pilgrims died due to cardiac arrest en route to the cave shrine in Kashmir Himalayas over the past three days, taking the death toll in this year's pilgrimage to 15, officials said in Srinagar on Sunday.
Two Amarnath pilgrims died and 23 people, including 5 pilgrims, were injured in separate mishaps in Jammu region.
The bus in which they were travelling rolled down a gorge at Banihal in Doda district.
The Bajrang Dal has threatened to send a team of 100 volunteers to the Amarnath shrine on June 4 to take stock of the situation there. Earlier, a group of Bajrang Dal activists has tried to make their way to the shrine but were prevented by the Jammu and Kashmir police from doing so.
Three civilians, an army trooper, and a militant were killed in an ongoing fierce gunbattle between militants and surrounding security forces in Jammu, which is in the throes of a 60-day long violent Amarnath land row agitation. Police said a group of militants came to Bantallab locality in an autorickshaw on Wednesday morning and started firing indiscriminately resulting in the death of three civilians.
Curfew was lifted in Kathua and Samba towns in Jammu on Tuesday following the return of normalcy in the areas that were rocked by violence over the Amarnath land row.
With the Amarnath crisis weighing heavily, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday warned that dividing people in the name of religion could threaten the country's unity and asked political parties to come together in finding a permanent solution to problems of Jammu and Kashmir.
'If you post on social media on an issue like power cuts in Tral, the police will come to your home and tell you to remove your social media post.' 'If you don't, then the local police threaten you that they will book you under PSA.' 'This is happening all the time in Kashmir.'
With security already being beefed up on Jammu-Pahalgam and Jammu-Baltal routes, the Yatra has remained incident-free so far.
The army said on Friday that it will observe 'maximum restraint' while dealing with the agitation over the Amarnath land transfer issue but it will be compelled to use "minimum force" if confronted.
Private carrier Jagson Airlines, which operates between Delhi and Himachal Pradesh, will start helicopter operations for Amarnath pilgrims with 44 daily services to the holy shrine from Srinagar and Baltal in Jammu and Kashmir.
Fresh clashes broke out in curfew-bound Kashmir Valley on Saturday in which 30 persons, including 15 security personnel were injured, as protests against the Ramban killings on Thursday continued in Jammu and Kashmir.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday claimed it had little role to play in the ongoing violent agitation in Jammu against the cancellation of land allotment to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board.Claiming that the role of political activists in this 'mass movement' was minimal, the BJP asked the government to directly speak to the people leading the movement 'with an open mind' instead of trying to resolve the issue through an all-party meeting, convened by the Prime Minister.
Jammu and Kashmir Governor N N Vohra told Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad that the Amarnath Shrine Board would not pursue the transfer of land.
The 5087 Gorakhpur-Jammu Tawi Express hit the truck at the crossing near Domingarh Station, 7km from Gorakhpur in eastern Uttar Pradesh.
The numbers nosedived to 2810 on July 23, a day after the Tanda army camp attack, followed by 2802 on July 24, 2516 on July 25, 2343 on July 26 and 1735 on July 27, they said.
Undettered by the grenade attack on pilgrims at Baltal, 18th batch of 1,259 pilgrims left for the holy cave shrine in south Kashmir Himalayas on Friday.
Fresh protests against arrests in connection with the Kishtwar communal-strife on Tuesday rocked Jammu, Aknoor, Ramnagar and Samba areas even as curfew was relaxed in several towns of the Jammu region.
A plea has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking directions to the Election Commission and the government for holding early assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir.
The two Pakistan-based terrorists of the LeT were killed in an encounter with police at village Nagabal-Derand in Ganderbal district on Sunday night, foiling a plan of the outfit to attack the pilgrims on their return from the cave shrine, a police spokesperson said.
Although the curfew was lifted on Tuesday from Jammu and the adjoining areas, the region witnessed protest rallies yet again, demanding the removal of Governor N N Vohra and the restoration of forest land to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board.
When she retired after 35 years of service, a surprise awaited government teacher Asha Tripathi.
The Supreme Court on Thursday asked the Jammu and Kashmir government to pave the passage from Panchtarni to Amarnath holy cave with pre-fabricated cement tiles to ensure that pilgrims do not slip on the way.
After Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Mizoram would go for polls this year.
Several measure have been taken to beef up security for the pilgrimage.
Seventy Shiv Sena and Bharatiya Janata Party activists were arrested as they clashed with police during a bandh called by them in protest against Jammu and Kashmir government's decision not to hand over forest land to the Amarnath Shrine Board. Nine persons were injured in baton charge and stone-pelting during the clash, sources said.
The road, the alternative link between Kashmir and rest of the country, was closed after the season's first heavy snowfall in the Jammu region.
The encounter broke on Monday when the terrorists opened fire on an army convoy, on its way to Srinagar, at Qazigund on Jammu-Srinagar national highway. One soldier was killed in the attack while another sustained injuries.
Among the free symbols are walking stick, baby walker, air conditioner, balloon, bangles, wheel barrow, whistle, window, wool and needle, water melon, walnut, wallet, violin, vacuum cleaner and trumpet.
A police case has been filed against three persons in connection with the appearance of ice in the shape of a 'lingam' in the renowned Trimbakeshwar temple in Maharashtra's Nashik in June last year, which a probe committee has now proclaimed as a hoax.
The yatra would now be on for 45 days from the existing 30 days.
The incident occurred ahead of the annual pilgrimage to the Amarnath cave shrine in south Kashmir Himalayas for which security has been tightened.
A suspension of the agitation over the Amarnath row is necessary to pave the way for a dialogue, senior Congress leader and former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said on Wednesday.Azad said he was happy that all political parties echoed the view that the situation in the state was serious and there should be no room for communalisation of politics.He added that it is important for the current agitation to stop because "you cannot solve a problem."
The body of a junior commissioned officer was retrieved from a stream in the Poshana area of Surankote late Saturday evening, while the body of a second soldier was found this morning as the water level started receding in the district.
'What led to the present crisis was an action taken by my government in good faith. Nobody realised then that things would come to such a stage. I feel that had it not been for the coming elections in the state, the cabinet decision (to allot land to the Amarnath shrine board) would not have been even noticed. It was the timing of the decision that resulted in a bad situation,' says Azad.
With less than 10 days left for the start of annual Amarnath Yatra, the Centre and the Jammu and Kashmir government said there is a terror threat to the nearly two-month-long pilgrimage and that additional security forces are being deployed to provide safety.
It's a different Srinagar from what Rediff.com's Syed Firdaus Ashraf encountered 24 years ago. Tourists throng the Kashmir Valley post-Article 370, azaadi appears dead, and everyone says one man is responsible for this change, so what if his poster is nowhere to be seen.
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