Pak bunkers worry India

The ceasefire may be in force along the India-Pakistan border in Jammu and Kashmir,but that hasnt prevented the Pakistani Army...

The ceasefire may be in force along the India-Pakistan border in Jammu and Kashmir,but that hasnt prevented the Pakistani Army from building bunkers close to the border. The Indian Army,consequently,remains in a state of high alert. BSF officials said the issue was earlier taken up with the Pakistani Rangers but to no effect. Over 200 new bunkers were constructed by Pakistani Rangers in 2007; the number is only increasing thereafter. The activity,in fact,has picked up quite a pace after the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks. Even as the infiltration from across the border has shown a decline and no major violation of ceasefire has been reported along the border,the bunkers remain a source of constant worry for the BSF.

Shopian unrest derails meeting

Unrest in the Valley over the killings in Baramulla and Shopian also resulted in the postponement of a high-level security coordination committee meeting,which was to be held in Srinagar in the last week of June. The meeting,besides reviewing the security cover of Chief Minister and his Cabinet colleagues,was also to consider fresh demands for security including those from the defeated candidates of the last Lok Sabha polls who have reportedly received threat calls for contesting the polls. The meeting is now likely to be held in August,sources said.

Congress suffers berth pangs

The split within the Congress and NC was exposed soon after Chief Minister Omar Abdullah expanded his Cabinet. A group of disgruntled senior Congress leaders conveyed their displeasure to the party high command over their exclusion from the Council of Ministers. Md Sharief Naiz,the Bhaderwah MLA and cousin of Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad,has threatened to quit the Congress for inducting ex-minister and Inderwal MLA G M Saroori. I am an honest worker of Congress and have been associated with it since 1977. I am aggrieved as the party has made Sarooria Minister even though I had apprised the party high command about his anti-party activities. Saroori bribed people to vote against me in Bhaderwah, Niaz said. Congresss state vice-president Abdul Gani Vakil,Dooru MLA G A Mir,ex-Minister and Doda MLA Abdul Majeed Wani and senior party leader Chouhdary Aslam,too,joined Naiz in expressing their resentment over the Cabinet expansion.

Self-rule versus autonomy

Flaying the National Conferences autonomy proposal,former deputy chief minister and senior PDP leader Muzaffar Hussain Beigh said that autonomy would mean much more than independence for Jammu and Kashmir. The NC,he said,is seeking deletion of Article 355 from the Constitution,which would mean that the Army wont defend the state in case of any external aggression. While making a case for PDPs self-rule,he said unlike NCs autonomy,self-rule will improve relations between the Centre and the state. There is no bigger invective hurled at the party than saying that PDPs self-rule and NCs autonomy was similar, Beigh added.