Srinagar: The 25-member EU delegation, which visited the valley on Wednesday, said life is limping back to normal with people doing normal business and traffic plying on all routes, though people were facing difficulties due to suspension of high speed internet and broadband service since August 5, when the Centre scrapped Article 370 and divided the state into two Union Territories (UTs).

However, the Democratic Party Nationalist (DPN) president and former minister Ghulam Hassan Mir said that since the Union Government has allowed three foreign delegations, now it is time to allow Members of Parliament (MP) and other leaders from different political parties to visit Kashmir to assess the situation after abrogation of special status of the state on August 5.

”During our day-long visit on Wednesday to Kashmir valley, including Shikara ride on the waters of world famous Dal Lake, we see people doing their normal activities in Srinagar,” a group of delegation members said.

The youths are in a good spirit and want to move forward, the members added.

They said after their return to their countries, they will encourage people to visit the Kashmir valley which is very peaceful. The place is very friendly for foreign investments, they said. However, some of them said continued suspension of high speed internet and broadband was affecting the users.

”We saw life normal and people doing their daily normal work and transport plying on all route,” they said.

They said they met a number of local delegations besides some individuals. However, prominent traders association and others were not invited for the meeting with the delegation.

The 25-member foreign delegation left for Jammu today to assess the situation.

They were briefed by top Army commander, civil administration and other security agencies about the overall security situation in the valley, particularly, efforts being made to send more militants into this side from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).

A trader, Abrar, said that visit of the delegation will not prove fruitful to people of Kashmir, who have suffered huge losses after the August 5 due to suspension of internet. This may help the union government at International level, but these visits will hardly make any difference in Kashmir, he said.

About the announcement by foreign delegation members that they will help foreign investment and encourage their citizens to visit Kashmir, the trader said, ”Let us hope for the best. But, he said, the members of the delegation should in fact help to resolve the crisis.”

Mir said visit of foreign delegation was a welcome step, but the Union Government should allow MPs and other leaders of the country to visit Kashmir.

The second batch of 25 foreign envoys from the European Union and Gulf countries arrived here on Thursday morning for a first-hand assessment of the situation in the Union territory, six months after the nullification of Article 370.

”The envoys arrived here this morning and will be meeting the Chief Justice of J&K High Court, Justice Gita Mittal, Lieutenant Governor Girish Chandra Murmu,” official sources here said.

They further said that the foreign envoys will also meet around 20 various delegations including traders, political, non-political, social, civil society and religious.

The batch includes envoys from Germany, Canada, France, New Zealand, Mexico, Italy, Afghanistan, Austria, Uzbekistan, Poland, as well as envoys of the European Union.

Earlier on January 9-10, a team of 15 envoys, including US Ambassador to India Kenneth Juster, paid a two-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir.

The Central Government abrogated Article 370 and bifurcated Jammu and Kashmir into Union Territories, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh on August 5, 2019.

New Delhi: A petition filed by Sara Abdullah Pilot, challenging the detention of her brother and National Conference leader Omar Abdullah under the J-K Public Safety Act, will be heard on Friday before a new bench of the Supreme Court headed by Justice Arun Mishra.

The plea has been listed for Friday before the new 2-judge bench, also comprising Justice Indira Banerjee, as Justice M M Shantanagoudar had on Wednesday recused himself from hearing the matter without citing any specific reason.

Pilot’s plea had come up for hearing before a 3-judge bench of Justices N V Ramana, M M Shantanagoudar and Sanjiv Khanna.

Pilot had on February 10 approached the top court challenging her brother’s detention under the J-K Public Safety Act, 1978, saying the order of detention is “manifestly illegal” and there is no question of him being a “threat to the maintenance of public order”.

The plea has sought quashing of the February 5 order detaining Omar Abdullah, former chief minister of erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, under the PSA and also sought his production before the court.

Pilot has said that exercise of powers by authorities under the CrPC to detain individuals, including political leaders, was “clearly mala fide to ensure that the opposition to the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution is silenced”.

It said that on the intervening night of August 4-5, 2019, Omar Abdullah was put under house arrest and it was later learnt that section 107 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), 1973 was invoked to justify such arrest.

It said “similar orders of detention have been issued by respondents (authorities of union territory of Jammu and Kashmir) over the last seven months in a wholly mechanical manner to other detenues, which suggest that there has been a consistent and concerted effort to muzzle all political rivals”.

The plea said there could be no material available to detain a person who has already been detained for previous six months and the “grounds for the detention order are wholly lacking any material facts or particulars which are imperative for an order of detention”.

“In fact, a reference to all public statements and messages posted by the detenue during the period up to his first detention would reveal that he has kept calling for peace and cooperation – messages which in Gandhi’s India cannot remotely affect public order,” it said.

The plea said that at no point of time in his “prolific political career”, he has resorted to or indulged in conduct unbecoming of a “conscientious public figure”.

The grounds of detention against Omar Abdullah, chief minister of the state from 2009-14, claims that on the eve of reorganisation of the state he had allegedly made attempts to provoke general masses against the revocation of Articles 370 and 35-A.

Omar Abdullah, who has been junior foreign minister and commerce minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led Cabinet in 2000, was served with a three-page dossier in which he was alleged to have made statements in the past which were “subversive” in nature.

Srinagar: Police have arrested a cross-LoC trader Tanveer Ahmad Wani in tainted DSP Devinder Singh Case, sources said on Thursday.

So far, six people have been arrested in this case. Sources said Wani’s role is being investigated over money transfers to Hizb commander Naveed Babu.

Sources said he acted as a conduit of money trail from pakistan to militants groups including Hizbul Mujahideen.

Wani was the President of LoC traders association. His house was searched in July 2019 in a case related to cross-LoC trade.

According to sources, Wani was summoned to Delhi from Pulwama and arrested there. On January 11, police arrested Davinder Singh on the Jammu-Srinagar national highway when he was transporting Naveed, Rafi and Irfan to Jammu.

After initial investigations by the J&K police the case was handed to the NIA.

Police sources said that the two terrorists and the lawyer had planned a travel to Pakistan after reaching Jammu.

Singh was earlier shifted from Srinagar to Jammu on a transit remand where an NIA team questioned him. After his arrest by the J&K police, multiple raids were conducted at his residence in Srinagar.

Singh was posted with the anti-hijacking wing of J&K Police in Srinagar, and was part of the security staff that had received a group of foreign diplomats who visited Kashmir.

Srinagar: A memorial to the 40 CRPF personnel killed in the Pulwama terror attack in February last year will be inaugurated at the Lethpora camp on Friday, a top official said.

“It is a way to pay homage to the brave jawans who lost their lives in the attack,” Additional Director General of CRPF Zulfiquar Hasan said on Thursday here after a visit to the site where the memorial has been erected.

The names of all the 40 personnel along with their pictures will be part of the memorial along with the moto of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) — ‘Seva and Nishtha’ (Service and Loyalty).

“It definitely was an unfortunate incident and we have learnt our lessons now. We were always extra alert during our movement but now an extra layer of alertness has been added to it,” Hasan said here.

The supreme sacrifices of the 40 jawans has furthered increased “our resolve to eliminate enemies of the country”.

“We fight with extra vigour during an encounter with terrorists and that is why we were able to eliminate the entire Jaish-e-Mohammed commanders immediately after the attack on our jawans,” he said.

While he refused to spell out the precaution that is taken during troop movements in the aftermath of the February 14 attack, officials in the security establishment said the movement of troops is now done in coordination with other security forces and the army.

The Ministry of Home Affairs had also allowed the CRPF to carry its troops by air to avoid the possibility of any such attack.

The Jammu and Kashmir government had imposed a ban on plying of private vehicles on two days in a week to facilitate movement of troops. The order was later rescinded after the situation became normal.

The process of bullet-proofing of vehicles carrying the troops was expedited and more and more bunker-type vehicles were seen on roads carrying the jawans.

The memorial has been set up inside a CRPF camp adjacent to the place where Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist Adeel Ahmed Dar, driving an explosive-laden car, blew himself next to a convoy of security forces killing the 40 personnel.

Almost all the conspirators behind the dastardly attack have since been killed with the last one being Qari Yasir, the self-styled chief of Jaish-e-Mohammad terror group, who was killed last month.

JAMMU: The Election Authority J&K has issued schedule for elections to vacant seats of Sarpanches and Panches in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.

As per the schedule, the elections would be held for 25 vacant Panchayat Halqas and 768 vacant Panch Constituencies of 21 blocks of Kupwara district, 148 vacant Panchayat Halqas and 2163 vacant Panch Constituencies of 26 blocks of Baramulla district, 45 vacant Panchayat Halqas and 603 vacant Panch Constituencies of 9 blocks of Bandipora district, 41 vacant Panchayat Halqas and 685 vacant Panch Constituencies of 7 blocks of Ganderbal district,  9 vacant Panchayat Halqas and 155 vacant Panch Constituencies of 4 blocks of Srinagar district, 157 vacant Panchayat Halqas and 1941 vacant Panch Constituencies of 17 blocks of Budgam district, 151 vacant Panchayat Halqas and 1437 vacant Panch Constituencies of 11 blocks of Pulwama district, 73 vacant Panchayat Halqas and 742 vacant Panch Constituencies of 9 blocks of Shopian district, 103 vacant Panchayat Halqas and 968 vacant Panch Constituencies of 8 blocks of Ganderbal district, vacant Panchayat Halqas and 685 vacant Panch Constituencies of 7 blocks of Kulgam district and 135 vacant Panchayat Halqas and 1995 vacant Panch Constituencies of 16 blocks of Anantnag district. Thus, in Kashmir division elections to a total of 887 vacant Panchayat halqas and 11457 vacant Panch Constituencies of 128 blocks would be conducted.

In Jammu division, the elections would be held for 10 vacant Panchayat Halqas and 9 vacant Panch Constituencies of 11 blocks of Kishtwar district, 16 vacant Panchayat Halqas and 17 vacant Panch Constituencies of 17 blocks of Doda district, 10 vacant Panchayat Halqas and 19 vacant Panch Constituencies of 11 blocks of Ramban district, 16 vacant Panchayat Halqas and 15 vacant Panch Constituencies of 17 blocks of Udhampur district, 9 vacant Panchayat Halqas and 14 vacant Panch Constituencies of 12 blocks of Reasi district, 19 vacant Panchayat Halqas and 19 vacant Panch Constituencies of 19 blocks of Kathua district, 5 vacant Panchayat Halqas and 20 vacant Panch Constituencies of 9 blocks of Samba district, 15 vacant Panchayat Halqas and 25 vacant Panch Constituencies of 20 blocks of Jammu district, 16 vacant Panchayat Halqas and 26 vacant Panch Constituencies of 19 blocks of Rajouri district and 8 vacant Panchayat Halqas and 18 vacant Panch Constituencies of 11 blocks of Poonch district. Thus, in Jammu division elections to a total of 1011 vacant Panchayat halqas and 11639 vacant Panch Constituencies of 274 blocks would be conducted.

With the announcement of this schedule for conduct of Panchayat By-Elections, provisions of Model Code of Conduct have come into force with immediate effect. In this regard, control rooms have been established in all the districts for prompt action of any complaint.

According to schedule for holding Panchayat By-Elections 2020 in Panchayat Halqas and Panch Wards of J&K prepared by the Election Authority of J&K, for Phase-I the date of issuance of Gazette Notification would be 15-02-2020, last date for making nomination would be 22-02-20, date of scrutiny would be 24-02-2020, last date for withdrawal of candidature would be 26-02-2020 while 05-03-2020 would be the date of Poll wherever necessary.

For Phase-II the date of issuance of Gazette Notification would be 17-02-2020, last date for making nomination would be 24-02-2020, date of scrutiny would be 25-02-2020, last date for withdrawal of candidature would be 27-02-2020 while 07-03-2020 would be the date of Poll wherever necessary.

For Phase III, the date of issuance of Gazette Notification would be 19-02-2020, last date for making nomination would be 26-02-2020, date of scrutiny would be 27-02-2020, last date for withdrawal of candidature would be 29-02-2020 while 09-03-2020 would be the date of Poll wherever necessary.

For Phase IV, the date of issuance of Gazette Notification would be 22-02-2020, last date for making nomination would be 29-02-2020, date of scrutiny would be 02-03-2020, last date for withdrawal of candidature would be 04-03-2020 while 12-03-2020 would be the date of Poll wherever necessary.

For Phase V, the date of issuance of Gazette Notification would be 24-02-2020, last date for making nomination would be 02-03-2020, date of scrutiny would be 03-03-2020, last date for withdrawal of candidature would be 05-03-2020 while 14-03-2020 would be the date of Poll wherever necessary.

For Phase VI, the date of issuance of Gazette Notification would be 26-02-2020, last date for making nomination would be 04-03-2020, date of scrutiny would be 05-03-2020, last date for withdrawal of candidature would be 07-03-2020 while 16-03-2020 would be the date of Poll wherever necessary.

For Phase VII, the date of issuance of Gazette Notification would be 28-02-2020, last date for making nomination would be 06-03-2020, date of scrutiny would be 07-03-2020, last date for withdrawal of candidature would be 09-03-2020 while 18-03-2020 would be the date of Poll wherever necessary.

For Phase VIII, the date of issuance of Gazette Notification would be 29-02-2020, last date for making nomination would be 07-03-2020, date of scrutiny would be 09-03-2020, last date for withdrawal of candidature would be 11-03-2020 while 20-03-2020 would be the date of Poll wherever necessary.

The Polling Hours shall be from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm while the counting of votes shall be taken up on the day of poll unless notified otherwise, followed by announcement of the results.