The petition letter, drafted by council member Ghulam Nabi Fai, has signatures of nearly 1400 persons from the Kashmir Valley. However, not one Kashmiri politician has signed it.
Amid demands for withdrawal of Armed Forces Special Powers Act from their state, Kashmiri Pandits on Wednesday opposed any such move and asked the Centre to take the views of all shades of opinion of the state before deciding on any major issue related to the state.
Security agencies made a quick estimate of passports issued between 2015 and 2019, and found that out of the 40 youth who had gone to Bangladesh or Pakistan for studies, 28 had infiltrated back into the country as trained terrorists, the officials said.
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Union Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai said 180 terrorists, 31 security personnel and 31 civilians were also killed in Jammu and Kashmir in 123 terrorist incidents this year so far.
The Nobel laureate's statement comes after the Indian government on Monday revoked Article 370 of the Constitution that gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir and bifurcated the state into two Union Territories -- Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.
'When they get violent, we have to follow the orders issued to us.'
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday said return of Kashmiri Pandits should not be kept hostage to the dictate of the separatist leadership and strongly demanded a "secured zone" for those who want to return to their homeland.
Condoling the death of Junaid Akhnoon, Pakistan's foreign office claimed the incident was part of "continued Indian atrocities" in Kashmir. "The cold-blooded murder is the worst example of state terrorism of the Indian government and is indeed deplorable," it said in a press release.
Ram Navami was celebrated on Thursday with fervour across the country, with processions taken out in different states.
>After 30 years, Kashmiri Pandits held special prayers at the Shiv temple at Dhobiwan village in the Tangmarg area of north Kashmir's Baramulla district.
Shehbaz, 72, who was the consensus candidate of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), received 201 votes, 32 more than what was required to become leader of the House in the 336-member Parliament.
Pakistan on Thursday termed the slapping of sedition charges on nearly 60 Kashmiri students in Uttar Pradesh for cheering the Pakistani cricket team as "very unfortunate" and said its "heart" and educational institutions are always open if they wanted to pursue their studies in Islamabad.
An almost complete communications blackout has been imposed in Kashmir since August 5 after the Narendra Modi-led government moved to scrap the region's special status. Kashmiris outside the state are most affected by the inability to contact their families back home and not knowing what's happened to them. Umar Ganie listens to some voices of anguish, even anger.
Even as its demand for disenfranchisement of Muslims community has evoked sharp reactions from political parties, the Shiv Sena on Tuesday sought to know why the issue of voting rights of Kashmiri Pandits has not been raised in the same manner.
From a trickle in 1990, when militancy erupted in the valley, the numbers have, however, gradually seen an upward trend.
A blog linked to TRF, an offshoot of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, published the list of 56 Kashmiri Pandit employees who were recruited under the Prime Minister's Rehabilitation Package, and warned of mounting attacks on them.
Tullamulla village, 27 kilometre from Srinagar in Ganderbal district where the Kashmiri Pandits' holiest shrine is located, wore a festive look despite the overnight heavy rains in Kashmir.
A bastion of Kashmiri pandits, a record 12 displaced pandits of a total 21 candidates are trying their luck from Habba Kadal segment which goes to polls with 20 other constituencies in Jammu, Srinagar and Samba districts in seventh and final phase of elections on December 24.
A delegation of Imams on Tuesday met Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh in New Delhi and urged him to help restore calm in the Kashmir Valley which is witnessing turmoil following the killing of Hizbul commander Burhan Wani.
Hundreds of Pandits staged a demonstration during which the successive state and central governments were accused of ignoring the plight of the community.
Holding placards and banners, rival Kashmiri groups staged protests outside the United Nations on Friday afternoon during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's address to the plenary session of the UN General Assembly.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday blamed India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's "two major blunders" -- declaring a ceasefire without winning the entire Kashmir and taking the issue to the United Nations -- for the sufferings of the people of Jammu and Kashmir.
Compelling voices from the youth caught on both sides of the Kashmiri conflict.
The United States has refused to confirm the death of Harkatul Jihad al-Islami chief Ilyas Kashmiri in a recent drone strike in Pakistan's South Waziristan region.
Ten Kashmiri students caught in a row over cheering for Pakistan cricket team have been expelled by a private university in Meerut after they were found guilty of misconduct and damaging property while suspension of 57 other Kashmiri students was revoked.
Ilyas Kashmiri, considered one of the masterminds of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, was behind the assassination of Minority Affairs Minister Shahbaz Bhatti earlier this year, according to a media report on Tuesday.
A Kashmiri Pandit organisation has placed the number of Pandits killed since 1989 when militancy erupted in Kashmir at 399, contradicting the official figure of 219.
Besides the bills, the government has listed the first batch of supplementary demands for grants for 2023-24 for presentation, discussion and voting during the session.
'Violence is the only answer to violence.'
The three faces of terror in Pakistan who will lead from the front are -- Ayman al-Zawahiri, Mullah Omar, Sirajuddin Haqqani.
Kashmir police chief Vijay Kumar has directed personnel to apprehend those responsible for the attack as soon as possible.
There have been uncorroborated rumours since Saturday afternoon, claiming that Ilyas Kashmiri, the head of the 313 Brigade, an affiliate of the Al Qaeda, was killed in a drone strike by the United States in South Waziristan on Friday night.
For the last four years since abrogation of Article 370, Kashmir-based political parties have been struggling to forge an alternate narrative to the one forcibly snatched from them. The BJP is bound to go hammer and tongs at them now that their armoury is reinforced with the Supreme Court judgment, notes Mohammad Sayeed Malik, the veteran commentator on Kashmir affairs.
The Kashmiri Pandit Sabha threatened to intensify its agitation, if the government did not stop threatening to withhold the salaries of KP employees and forcing them to come back to the valley, where they are under mortal threat from terrorists.
27-year-old Vinod Dhar's entire family was massacred when he was just a teenager. He now has a government job and a flat alloted by the government in a township for Kashmiri Pandits in Jammu but almost a decade later, the horrors of that night remain with him. Archana Masih reports from Jammu.
Kashmir witnessed a second day of a complete shutdown on Monday as the Supreme Court adjourned the hearing in petitions challenging the validity of Article 35A. The petition in the case has been filed by a Delhi-based NGO, We the Citizens, saying the state's autonomous status granted by Article 35(A) and Article 370 of the Constitution discriminate against fellow citizens from the rest of the country.
Kashmiri, described by The Sunday Times as the new Osama bin Laden and one of the most dangerous men on earth, was last week named as Al-Qaeda's chief military strategist in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He has been entrusted with the responsibility of spearheading attacks in the West, and has been assigned to bring western recruits into Al Qaeda, the paper said.
'Article 370 offered very important protections that were related to people's day to day lives.'