Bashaarat Masood

Qadiry tweeted, “In our interaction with Kashmiri media outlets, media people seriously urged the govt to restore internet broadband as it is causing them so much problems to report and broadcast.”

Naeem Akhtar, a close aide of former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, is among those detained since August 5 last year, following the Centre’s decision to revoke J&K’s special status under Article 370.

Iltija said the police dossier and the “grounds of detention” under the stringent PSA should be objective, with solid arguments.

PSA dossier compares former J&K Chief Minister to 14th-century Kashmir queen; a look at her life & times.

While hailing the Centre’s decision to revoke J&K’s special status under Article 370 as a “historic decision”, the dossier has accused Abdullah of trying to stoke public anger to trigger violent protests.

In response to the dossier citing “confidential reports” by intelligence agencies that Mehbooba has supported separatism in the Valley, Iltija dared the government to place the evidence in public domain.

PDP leader and former minister Naeem Akhtar was on Saturday shifted to a house in the high-security Gupkar neighbourhood of Srinagar after being booked under PSA.

The administration has also invoked the PSA against NC general secretary Ali Mohammad Sagar and PDP leader Sartaj Madni. Sources said bureaucrat-turned-politician Shah Faesal is also likely to be detained under PSA.

The move comes a day after the J&K administration released former PDP legislator Ajaz Ahmad Mir and business leader Shakeel Qalander from detention.

Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman quoted a verse from ‘Myon Watan (My Country)’, a poem by renowned Kashmiri poet, late Dina Nath Kaul ‘Nadim’, to emphasise that “everything the government does is for this beloved country”.

On January 11, a team of J&K Police arrested Singh, Hizbul Mujahideen commander Syed Naveed Mushtaq and his associates Rafi Ahmad Rather and advocate Irfan Shafi when they were travelling to Jammu.

On Thursday, CDS Gen Bipin Rawat said that “girls and boys as young as 10 and 12 are now being radicalised” in Kashmir, and that those who are “completely radicalised” need to be “taken out separately” and put in deradicalisation camps.

According to the police, Singh was arrested on January 11 while he was accompanying Hizbul Mujahideen commander Syed Naveed Mushtaq and his associates to Jammu.

Among the three killed was Special Police Officer (SPO)-turned-militant Adil Bashir Sheikh, who in September 2018 had decamped with seven AK-47 rifles and a pistol from the official residence of then PDP legislator Ajaz Ahmad Mir.

It started snowing in the Valley Sunday evening and continued through Monday. Srinagar itself accumulated 10-12 inches of snow, while most other parts of north Kashmir comprising Baramulla, Kupwara and Bandipore districts witnessed 3-4 feet of snow.

DySP Davinder Singh, who was posted with Srinagar airport’s anti-hijacking unit, was suspended on Monday.

The police officer has been identified as Deputy Superintendent of Police Davinder Singh, who was awarded the President’s medal for gallantry last year.

Davinder Singh’s alleged role in the Parliament attack case was not probed. Asked about this on Sunday, IGP (Kashmir) Vijay Kumar said: “There is nothing as such in our records nor do I know anything about it... We will question him on this.”

The Wular Conservation and Management Authority (WUCMA) has started cutting trees on the Ramsar wetland — an area of international importance and once Asia’s largest freshwater lake.