The multi-agency search operation to trace 33 missing persons in cloudburst-hit Kishtwar district in Jammu and Kashmir has entered its eighth day. The death toll stands at 65, and rescue efforts are ongoing with the help of multiple agencies and heavy machinery.
The shocking scenes of physical and psychological trauma unfolded on a massive scale as search and rescue operations were underway, digging out mud-buried bodies and rescuing the injured trapped in slush and rocks after flash floods triggered by a cloudburst devastated Chositi village in Jammu and Kashmir's Kishtwar district on Thursday.
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah briefed Prime Minister Narendra Modi on a devastating cloudburst in Kishtwar district that claimed 60 lives and injured over 100. Abdullah expressed condolences and assured assistance, while also questioning potential administrative lapses.
An encounter took place between security forces and terrorists in a remote forest in Jammu and Kashmir's Kishtwar early on Sunday, officials said.
The BJP has emerged the second largest party by winning 29 constituencies in the maiden assembly polls post abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir, improving its all-time high tally of 25 seats recorded in 2014 elections.
She emphasised security and employment as her primary issues for the upcoming elections.
More than 40 per cent of the 908 candidates contesting the assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir are Independents, leading to claims that a large number of them have been propped up by the Bharatiya Janata Party to divide votes.
Two more Bharatiya Janata Party leaders, including a district president, submitted their resignations from the primary membership of the party on Saturday, citing their resentment against the choice of candidates in their constituencies for the assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir.
Several deaths were reported across the country due to rain-related incidents like lightning strikes and drowning.
5 terrorists to LeT and Hizbul were killed in an encounter with security forces in Kulgam district of J&K.
A series of flash floods in Himachal Pradesh and the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh killed at least 16 people on Wednesday and damaged several residential houses, standing crops and a mini power plant, officials said.
Ganderbal SSP Hansraj Parihar and DSP Bahadur Ram have been arrested for their involvement in the fake encounters.
The Jammu and Kashmir government on Sunday arrested two police officials and attached a district police chief and his deputy in connection with the 'mysterious disappearance of a local villager' in Srinagar.
Authorities have asked people not to start the yatra and those on the way should leave and get back.
A grenade was lobbed by a youth at an election rally being addressed by a People's Democratic Party candidate in Noorabad Assembly seat of south Kashmir's Kulgam district.
Militants kidnapped three constables of the CRPF, who were on intelligence gathering mission, from Keller and Paddar forest area on Tuesday. While one of the constables managed to escape from the clutches of the kidnappers, the other two -- Mohammad Rafique and Asif Ali -- were killed by their captors, the sources said.
This is the first time that police officials of the rank of SSP or DSP have been arrested in connection with custodial killings or fake encounters since the militancy erupted in the state in the 1990s.
A new political party called the 'Jammu and Kashmir Apni (own) Party' (JKAP) will be launched on Sunday and will be led by former state finance minister Syed Altaf Bukhari, with the primary aim of proving "relief to people who have been facing uncertainty since August 5 last year". This will be the first political activity in Jammu and Kashmir after August 5 last year, when the Centre withdrew the special status of the erstwhile state and bifurcated it into Union territories of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.
Bukhari, who was elected president of the JKAP, said the party's core agenda would be the restoration of Jammu and Kashmir's statehood and its residents' domicile rights in land and jobs.
Behind the state's success in containing coronavirus positive cases is one novel initiative -- Active Case Finding or ACF, which even Prime Minister Narendra Modi endorsed for the bigger states to follow. The ACF campaign began in April with 16,000 basic health personnel, ASHA, anganwadi workers and auxiliary nurse midwives (ANM) out on foot trekking to most mountain valleys, snow-bound districts and remote passes of the state, reports Ashwani Sharma.
Earlier in 2010, the highest number of 156 terrorists were killed between January and July that year.
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