Fun dive that turned fatal

Nishwan Rasool:

Last Friday when people in adjacent areas of City Centre here were going to offer Friday prayers, Shakir Bhat, 15, stopped in the middle of the footbridge that connects the Bund with Raj Bagh locality. Accompanied by a friend, the teen from Tyndale Biscoe School was about to do the impossible – he was going to jump into Jehlum. The lads were joined by other friends at the footbridge. “Initially there appeared chaos, we tried to stop them,” says one of the Shakir’s friend.



Two boys from Biscoe School watch Jehlum waters from the spot where Shakir jumped on Friday last

Perhaps, he had second thoughts, but the other boy who set out with Shakir to jump from the bridge had dived moments before jumping from the dangerous spot.

Shakir’s friends asked him not to jump. “We shouted at him not to jump but a group of girls who were passing by egged him on” says the friend.

Despite being a dangerous stunt the boy who had jumped before him had credentials to do so, he says.

According to his friends the applause prompted to alter his decision and jump into the deadly river never to return again.

While Shakir’s relatives continue to camp at the site of incident, his classmates are finding it almost impossible to comprehend the loss. He is remembered and missed every moment. In his class room- 10th Red, the third desk as one enters- where Shakir would sit has been left empty. Even his close friends have been shifted to another section of the class.



But that hasn’t helped. “We start the day thinking when will his body be fished out and we sleep with the same thoughts,” say his friends who spend time waiting at the banks after the school gets over.

Shakir’s classmates, who shared a bench with him, remember him as a ‘person with a good heart’, endeared to everyone who knew him.

“Seven days have passed, but the episode is still roving in our minds, it is our worst nightmare,” say Shakir’s friends.

The shock and despair on their face is far too evident even after eight days of the incident. “He always used to carry lunch from home, which we stole,” says a close friend.

The students are angry at the lack of interest shown by the school. “When the principal’s son got married, we had a week long holiday. But when one of our classmates drowned, no one is even bothered to talk about it,” the students say.

Their anger hasn’t found a vent. About four days ago a solidarity rally arranged through social networking site was scuttled using repressive measures. “As we came out of the school, the police team intercepted and prevented us from taking out the rally. The students, including girls offered stiff resistance and tried to move to footbridge, where Shakir's family is camping for the last eight days,” says a student.

“We had arranged a peaceful solidarity rally but police, chased and beat us outside the school, they even didn’t leave the students of 5th and 6th class they were also beaten,” Omer a student adds.

“We received batons and abuses for holding a solidarity rally. Is this what we call a justice and a democratic state,” he questions.

They believe that the government is not taking the search operation seriously and see it just as a river-rafting exercise. “At the end of the day they come out with perplexed faces after cleaning the garbage from the river,” says a disgruntled student.

Stating the act as imprudent, a senior staff member at Tyndale Biscoe school was told after the incident by some students, “12 students were planning to jump from the footbridge on the same day to see who among them could swim fastest to the banks. However, the unfortunate incident acted as a deterrent for them.”

He expresses need for a rescue point to be set up near the bridges as most drowning incidents occur there. “More they delay in doing so, lesser are he chances of salvaging the lives of people,” he says.

Faheem Bakhtoo is a former student at Biscoe School. He has been watching the rescue operation since the incident took place and he seems visibly disappointed. “I believe that the government hasn’t taken their jobs seriously. It looks as if they are enjoying boat rafting there,” he says.

The strategy employed by various rescue teams from different departments is to create whirlpool in the river by moving boats in circular motion and putting hooks.

However, experts say that such strategies are faulty when applied in a moving water body like a river.


Abdul Ahad (name changed), an official of the State’s Water Transportation Department feels that such incidents could be prevented but lack of resources rescue are major constraint.

Ahad says that Kashmir has Asia’s two biggest fresh water lakes and three major river and the resources deployed to guard such mammoth territory is miniscule.

It is pertinent to mention that the river rescue team has not for the first time failed to fish out the drowned. Recently, Omar Farooq, 10, who drowned after a pack of stray dogs chased him in Old City, was fished out by locals in Sumbal in North Kashmir after 23 days.

In such cases locals living near the banks are informed about the drowned person. Ahad says, “Identification and contact details are given to people living along the banks of Jehlum in North Kashmir and are asked to inform the relatives if the body comes up.”

However, the state administration claims that they are well equipped to carry out such rescue operations. “We have a sufficient number of boats for the operation. But we need professional water divers who could search below the water and would be good enough to use the underwater equipments,” says Amir Ali, Officer on Special Duty at Divisional Commissioners office.

He says, “We are trying our level best to find out the body. We are hoping to fish out his body at the Chattabal Weir.”

Biscoe Students 'thrashed' for solidarity Rally

Nishwan Rasool :

Jammu and Kashmir police on Monday used batons to quell ‘solidarity rally’ of the students for the family of drowned student of a missionary school in Lal Chowk area, here.

Scores of students of Tyndale Biscoe and Mallinson school early this morning assembled near Lal Chowk and tried to take out a rally to express solidarity with the family of tenth standard student, Shakir Ashraf Bhat, who drowned in river Jhelum on Friday.

As the students came out of the school, eyewitnesses said a police team intercepted the students and prevented them from taking out the rally. The students, including girls offered stiff resistance and tried to move to Lal Mandi, where the family of the drowned teenage student has been camping for the last four days.

“We had arranged a peaceful solidarity rally today. Police, however, chased and beat us outside the school,” a student, identifying himself as Omer said.

“We were also beaten by police near the footbridge,” he added.

On Friday last week, Shakir and his friend Sheikh Suleman jumped into river Jhelum after they allegedly entered into a bet. While Sheikh successfully swam across, Shaker son of Mohammad Ashraf Bhat of Nowgam, drowned.

Another student wishing not to be named said that many students were injured in the police action.

“We received batons for holding a solidarity rally. Is this justice,” he asked.

The angry students also lashed at the response of the administration over the incident.

“When the principal’s got married we had a week long holiday. But when one of our classmates drowned no one is even bothered to talk about it,” a student said.

Meanwhile, police refuted the allegations and accused the students of indulging in stone pelting.

“The students tried to hurl stones and we had to bring the situation under control” a police official said.

Aalia Sheikh/Pics-Nishwan Rasool:

“They started entering houses and shooting people at point blank range,” Ghulam Qadeer Baig recalls that fateful day of May 21, 1990, which is remembered as Hawal massacre in the collective memory of Kashmiris. The killings by the Border Security Force troopers took place on a day when people were participating in the funeral procession of Mirwaiz Molvi Farooq.

Ghulam Qadeer’s brother-in-law, Farooq Ahmad Baig, son of Mohammad Abdullah Baig, was among the 67 people killed in the Hawal massacre – one of the worst massacres in Kashmir’s recent history.

“I still remember it like it was yesterday,” Qadeer recalls. “How could I forget it? We were helpless and at the mercy of those who had come to kill us,” he says and then lapses into a melancholic silence. Clogged by memories that come back to haunt him, he needs these pauses to recollect his thoughts.

His wife, Parvaiza, chips in when her husband fails to express his pain. “My brother was one among the people killed that day,” she says. He was participating in the funeral procession of Mirwaiz Molvi Farooq. “He was just paying his respects to a dead man,” she says. “Why did they have to kill him?”

Recounting the events of that day, she says, “On hearing gun-shots, many people ran and hid themselves in a neighbour’s house. I was one among them. That is why I could not see my brother being killed.”

Casting a longing glance at the picture of her brother, Parvaiza is torn between the consolation of not having to bear the sight of her brother being shot in front of her eyes, and the regret of not being able to see him alive for the last time.

Although Ghulam Qadeer has survived that horrific day, he hasn’t been able to come out of it without scars. He says the BSF troopers entered his neighbour’s house and shot him and his son, and then their house was set on fire.

The troopers next barged into Basheer Ahmad Baig’s house. “They killed him and his two sons,” says Qadeer. “His wife was also shot in the chest, but she survived along with their third son.”

The names of the victims and the number of people killed that day may change, but there’s one common feature in all the memories of survivors: troopers barging into people’s homes and shooting civilians, and not even sparing women and children.

“My son, who was ten years old then, was also shot at by the BSF troopers,” says Qadeer. “But thanks to Allah, the bullets missed him and hit the wall behind him,” he says. “The troopers also came towards me. I was sitting in this very room, with my young daughter in my lap,” he recalls sitting in his room. One of the troopers placed the barrel of his gun on Qadeer’s chest. “But he eventually changed his mind and did not shoot me,” he says.

Parvaiza’s sobs are the only intermittent sounds in her room. The silence that fills the room is deafening. Abdul Farooq’s mother, Makhta Begum, 60, enters the room.

“They came and snatched him from my arms. The troopers followed Farooq Ahmad right from the procession to his house. When he came in, his mother held him close to her chest -- to protect him. “He was shot in front of me,” Makhta Begum recalls that day when her son was killed. She recounts that day in a matter of fact tone, as if she is bereft of all feelings and emotions.

Later, the Beig family went to the Nowhatta police station and lodged a complaint against the troopers. “One of the BSF trooper’s cap fell in our home. The name inscribed on it was Pokhla. We took it to the police station and lodged a complaint against the trooper,” says Qadeer. But the trooper was suspended from duty only for six months.

Pokhla’s suspension could not bring them justice. If anything, it made their lives even worse. “We complained in the hope that he would be jailed and justice would be done to us,” says Parvaiza. “But they only suspended him for some time,” she says. “He was living in the area around our house and we did not want to face the consequences of standing up against a trooper.”

The family eventually had to move out of the locality and shift to Pampore in Pulwama district. They were on the move for about ten years, constantly shifting to Zoonimar and Soura. It cost Ghulam Qadeer his livelihood. “We lost our business and are living like paupers now,” says Ghulam Qadeer whose back problem restricts him from taking up regular jobs.

Eventually, they had to return to their own home in Hawal, where the ghosts of May 21, 1990 still haunt the family.

Disparity between the Old Media and New Media

Nishwan Rasool :-

Disparity between the Old Media and New Media
To me New media and old media isn't about the medium, it's not whether it convey from a radio or a Television, or whether it's printed on paper. Old media is begging for attention while New media itself is a attention. New media generally is digital or we can say it’s all about digitization the things and making them informative and interactive. Old media generally is analog and passive thus bounded up to the certain limits.

The print media is all about their outlook, their viewpoint their attitude and their versus. Weather it may be print or electronic media it can’t be old fashioned every publication has to move with time to time and generations after generations to sustain in an country or state weather it may be local, national or International publication.

All the components of the print media whether its stylesheet, its appearance how the readers will perceive it its outlook needs to be manipulated in accordance with the time. To, doing things differently on printing sector one has to compile all these elements. Magazine (which is an essential component in the field of print media) isn't purely an attempt at perfecting the print title, it's basically the print heading as art. It has to be serene and enjoyed and that enjoyment doesn't come through the title or heading finding its way into your pile of magazines or other table books (it's more the latter than the former) but when the best parts of the title are out on display the more demanded and readership increases because of its writing context, its look. And this is the approach that really shows the main difference between a monochrome publications and new era publication whether it would be a magazine or newspaper. New media do things differently that really makes them a part of the new media set as opposed to the old: each page of the newspaper or magazine is finely perforated down the spine, encouraging you not to just to turn the page, but to pull it out, to frame it, to have the photograph become actual art, an art that graces and beautifies your walls.
It is a fact that old media was more elite in terms of who worked for newspapers and who decided what was newsworthy), the problem with new media's age is that "anyone can be a journalist" means that there are masses of people out there with no formal training or with journalistic professional skills, ability to distinguish newsworthiness or sense of ethics drifting the Web with rumors lot of the time. enlarged access is great, but just because "anyone can be a journalist" doesn't mean that anyone SHOULD be, there should be a professionalism which can separate a local man from the true professionalism. Moreover the old media and the professionals working in the particular group like newsdesk and newsroom were assigned by their senior’s and bosses and they were make supposed to do that particular thing with the era growing and digitization and Web portals taking place Blogs, poadcast and free web site softwares being avalible on the net have separated the old media with new one. The new media which mostly carries the web services in which news also travels faster, as they don't have to wait for their time to slot for the next day’s paper to be printed. It's just a matter of gathrering, compiling, cross checking hitting submit and what you have to report its there for the world to see.

Woman miscarries outside Lal Ded hospital on the Road side, Official's order Probe into incident

Nishwan Rasool:-
After continuous allegations of mismanagement and malfunctioning, the Valley's lone maternity hospital is in news again for wrong reasons. A woman suffered miscarriage due to the alleged highhandedness security staff at the hospital here on Tuesday.

Saleema Bano, 30, wife of Din Mohammad Khatana of Kuligam Kupwara suffered a miscarriage outside the maternity hospital after the security staff didn’t allow the ambulance carrying Saleema and her family to proceed beyond the main gate, sources said.

“An ambulance (JKO1F- 0008) approached the main gate of the hospital around 10:45 this morning, but the security staff didn’t allow it to pass through. The woman was held up for 20 minutes and, as a result, she suffered miscarriage outside the hospital,” sources said, adding that hundreds of people joined the family in their protest against the hospital administration.

Saleema had been referred to the Lal Ded hospital from SMHS hospital.

Additional Deputy Commissioner Srinagar, Mukhtar- ul- Aziz reached the spot and pacified the protesters with an assurance that a through probe will be conducted into the incident.

“According to doctors the fetus had already died in the womb. However, investigations have been initiated into the incident,” he said.
Later on authorities at Kashmir’s lone maternity hospital Lal Ded on Thursday ordered probe into the alleged highhandedness by the security staff that led to the miscarriage of a woman.

“This is the first unfortunate incident that occurred in the hospital. We have ordered an enquiry in this incident. The persons found guilty, will be taken to task,” Medical Superintendent, Mohammad Shafi Shah told this correspondent