Nation
and States
Arson: 105-year-old school
gutted in Kashmir
What is India News Service, July 7, 2004, 1700 hrs IST
Kashmir's oldest school was burned down on Monday in a suspected arson
attack that sparked emotional street protests.
The institution has educated the region's most prominent and influential people for generations.
Also lost in the blaze was one of the world's oldest copies of the
Quran.
The Islamia Higher Secondary School, a 105-year-old brick and wood structure
with high arched windows and ceilings of cedar logs, was gutted in the
fire that broke out early on Monday in the centre of Srinagar, senior police
officer Javed Ahmad said.
"We suspect mischief. It doesn't seem to be an accident," he told The
Associated Press. No one claimed responsibility. The school housed one
of the oldest and rarest libraries on Islam, with some 30,000 books,
including one of the rarest manuscripts of the Quran, hand written by Hazrat
Usman bin Affan. The library was completely destroyed.
The school, which has some 2,500 students, was built in 1899 and is run
by
Anjuman e Nusrat ul Islam, a religious and educational trust headed by
Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, a top leader of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference. The
Hurriyat called an emergency meeting after the fire.
Scout visit: As a gesture of goodwill, the government of India allowed
a group of Pakistani boy scouts to enter Kashmir.
"They were holding Pakistani passports and they given Indian visas in Islamabad," Foreign Office spokesman Masood Khan
said.
Earlier, the spokesman said these boy scouts had gone under the umbrella of
the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) to attend
a function in Kashmir. According to the Saarc Charter it is only diplomats, jurists and
parliamentarians who can enter Saarc countries without visas.
New Delhi sent a clear political message by allowing the holding of a
Saarc
event in held Kashmir, and this is being seen as a step further to the
confidence building measures (CBMs) continuing between the two sides.
Fencing row: Masood Khan, during the weekly press briefing, made it clear that Pakistan
had not given any understanding, tacit or otherwise, to allow India to
continue with the fencing of the LoC. "This is in violation of the bilateral
and international agreements that we have. We have brought this violation
into the notice of the UN Security Council and the UNMOGIP," said the
spokesman.
Sort out envoy confusion, Pak tells US: Fed up with continuing allegations being hurled at Pakistan by the US Ambassador to Kabul,
Khalilzad, the spokesman said it was time the US State Department and the White House sorted out why the
envoy was making such provocative statements.
The Pakistan spokesman said: "We do take umbrage as these are unfortunate statements. Pakistan is doing so much in the war against terrorism
and we have conducted a fierce operation in Waziristan in which our soldiers and civilians lost their lives."
Foreign ministers' meeting: Masood Khan said the Indian and Pakistani
foreign ministers would also be meeting in Islamabad on the sidelines of
the Saarc ministerial moot to take ahead the peace process. The conference will be held on July 20 and 21.
Vow to rout Qaeda from Pakistan: Reiterating Pakistan's resolve to root
out terrorism, president Musharraf said on Monday that Islamabad was combating the
menace and not at all backtracking from its counter terrorism drive.
"We are strongly determined to fight off the menace. We are determined
to eliminate Al Qaeda from Pakistan," he said. Addressing a gathering of Swedish leaders,
parliamentarians, intellectuals and opinion makers at the Stockholm
School of Economics, he said, "Our fight has three dimensions. We are
operating at a military level to achieve short term results, then we are
dealing with the problem politically, and thirdly also bringing about development in the tribal areas to root out the menace
in the long term." Only one sub tribe is abetting Al Qaeda linked terrorists
in South Waziristan, while tribesmen of all other agencies support the
government's drive, he said.
Later addressing a select group of businessmen at a dinner hosted in
his honour by a leading Swedish firm AB Group at The Grand Hotel, President
Musharraf urged Swedish entrepreneurs to take advantage of Pakistan's
business friendly policies. He said investors were free to take home
full profit.
Curbing drugs: Senior anti narcotics officials from Pakistan, Afghanistan and
Iran opened a two day meeting in Islamabad on Monday to focus on the
ways of curbing the ongoing drug trafficking in the region.
Elements required for the development of a 'Drug Law Enforcement
Programme' between Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan, under the sponsorship of the
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) were discussed in the
meeting.
The IGTC meeting is held alternately in Islamabad and Tehran each year.
This was the fourth such meeting in which Afghanistan was invited.
Mayor seriously wounded: The mayor of a southern Afghan province was in
a Taliban attack.
The attack on Haji Manaf Khan, the mayor of Helmand province, occurred
in the provincial capital Lashkargar on Sunday, said a provincial spokesman.
"His car was blown up by a remote controlled mine," he said. "He was seriously wounded along with a
bodyguard. We arrested one Taliban on the spot."
New Sahitya Akademi chief: Urdu writer Gopi Chand Narang has taken over
as chairman of India's premier literary body. He said literature in the
regional languages needed a boost, and said in modern times, "simulation is usurping private space".
Asia new hotbed of Aids: When it comes to HIV/AIDS, the difference
between Indian and UN agencies is how they break the news. While the
National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) on last week assured that the
infection "is not galloping" in the country, the UN AIDS on Tuesday warned
that Asia is the new hotbed of the spread of the epidemic.
Education Board nominations: The government on Tuesday revamped the
Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) with Azim Premji of Wipro, J J
Irani of Tata Trust and Kiran Karnik of NASSCOM as nominated members on
the highest advisory body that advises the government on education.
Human resource development minister Arjun Singh said CABE had been revamped "for the review of the national policy on education which is also
due."
No troops for Iraq: The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government on
Tuesday asserted in the Lok Sabha that there was no question of sending
Indian troops to Iraq.
Foreign minister Natwar Singh said the UN Security Council resolution
on Iraq had ensured that the world body played a central role in the
war-ravaged country, a demand consistently made by India.
Infiltration continues: Army chief General N C Vij said here on Tuesday
that infiltration into Jammu and Kashmir from across the Line of Control
(LoC) had gone up and the security forces had killed 32 militants in
the last one month.
He also said the rate of infiltration was nearly double in June-July as
compared to the same period last year when seven bids were foiled by
the Army.
Talking to reporters after flagging off an Indo-Nepalese joint amy expedition to Saser Kangri, General Vij said he expected the level of
infiltration to go up in the summer months.
Overall:
School was burnt down: Police suspect mischief in the burning down of
Kashmir's oldest school.
Pakistan opposed fencing: It said it had not agreed to let India put a
fence along the Line of Control.
Musharaff said he would rout Qaeda: He told an influential Swedish
group that he had luanched a three-pronged attack against terrorism.
Education Board was reconstituted: Distinguished technocrats, such as
Premji, Irani and Karnik, are on it now.
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