Published from Srinagar | Jammu RNI No: 48956/88 Vol: 33 No. 128 Pages: 08 Rs. 5.00

THURSDAY, May 07, 2020 13, Ramadhan, 1441 33rd Year of publication

13TH Ramadhan IFTAAR | 07:21 PM

14TH Ramadhan SEHRI | 04:02 AM

FIKKAH JAFFARIA

IFTAAR | 07:31 PM

SEHRI | 04:00 AM

KHALID GUL

Awantipora, May 6: In a big blow to militancy in Kashmir, Hizb ul Muja-hideen Operational Chief Riyaz Naikoo was among the two militants killed in a gunfight with security forces in Awantipora police district of south Kashmir on Wednesday.

The operation was launched by army’s 55 RR, police and 184 Batallion CRPF in Beighpora, the native village of Naikoo last night, and ended Wednesday evening.

He had taken over as the operational chief of Hizb from Yasin Yatoo alias Ghaznawi killed in an encounter in August 2017.

Earlier that year he was elevated as divisional com-

mander of the outfit after Zakir Bhat, alias Moosa parted ways with the outfit to form his own Ansar Ghaz-wat ul Hind.

Naikoo had joined Hizb ranks in May 2012 and according to police was involved in several attacks on security forces.

He had been on the run for eight years.

Listed as category A++ militant, he carried a

bounty of Rs 12 lakh on his head.

A police official said forces ring-fenced Beighpo-ra and adjoining Gulzarpo-ra village at around 12 last night following inputs about the presence of Naikoo in his native village.

“Extensive searches were carried. JCB earth-diggers were also called in and the fields and locations around

Govt asks employees to use Aarogya Setu mobile app

SYED AMJAD SHAH

Jammu, May 6: General Administration Depart-ment (GAD) has mandated the use of Aarogya Setu mobile app by all Govern-ment employees in Jammu and Kashmir.

In an order, all adminis-trative secretaries, heads of the departments and head of offices have been directed to ensure use of the app by Government servants.

Don't use Naikoo's death to provoke violence: OmarSrinagar, May 6: Hizbul Mujahideen commander Riyaz Naikoo’s death must not be used as an excuse by some to put more people in "harm's way by provoking violence and protests,” former chief minister Omar Abdullah said on Wednesday.

“Riyaz Naikoo’s destiny was decided the moment he picked up the gun & adopt-ed the path of violence & terror. His death must not be used as an excuse by

Traffic movement affected on highway

MM PARVAIZ

Ramban, May 6: Traffic on the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway remained disrupted on Wednesday due to land-slides and shooting stones near cafeteria morh Ramban.

The shooting stones at the

site are hindering movement of vehicular traffic and the road restoration work is also getting suffered due to shoot-ing stones.

Hundreds of vehicles have been stuck and rains were hampering the restoration work, officials said.

Deadline extended for submission of newspaper issues New Delhi, May 6: The government has extended the deadline for the month-ly submission of issues of newspapers empanelled with Directorate of Adver-tising and Visual Publicity, which they are required to do under the advertise-ment policy, in view of the prevailing lockdown.

Under clause 13 of the Print Media Advertise-ment Policy of the gov-ernment, all newspapers empanelled with DAVP shall submit the monthly

Govt extends last date for filing annual GST return by 3 months New Delhi, May 6: The government has extended the last date for filing annual GST return for financial year 2018-19 by three months till Septem-ber 2020.

In another trade friendly move, the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) has also extended the valid-ity of e-way bills that were generated on or before March 24, and had expiry between March 20 and April 15, 2020.

How can schools reopen safely? UN agencies, World Bank lay down guidelines

Hizb commander Riyaz Naikoo killed in Awantipora gunfight Associate also killed 2 more militants killed in Khrew Internet, mobile phones shut across Kashmir Restrictions imposed Several injured in clashes

Bandipora, May 6: The Bandipora-Gurez road has been thrown open for vehic-ular traffic after remaining closed for four months due to heavy snow accumulation at Razdhan Pass.

The first convoy compris-ing of dozens of heavy vehi-cles and local commuters was today flagged off by the Brig. Suresh Kumar Bhamb-hu, commander 109 Infantry Brigade and CE project BCN Ravi Navet.

While facilitating the BRO Personnel especially the 56 RCC on the occasion, Brig Suresh Kumar said that it was a great moment to con-nect the Gurez Valley with rest of the country and all

the credit goes to the BRO personnel who worked hard in adverse condition to make the road through.

“This year the road got closed on 4th January and received a heavy spell of

snowfall ranging 20 to 30 feets. The BRO personnel started the summer snow clearance of the road well in advance braving all odds and reopened the road in just four months,” he said. GKNN

Bandipora-Gurez road opened for traffic

Shutting down phones, internet affects Covid fight Various contact-tracing apps, helplines turned defunct

ZEHRU NISSA

Srinagar, May 6: J&K had 35 new positives of COVID19 on Wednesday, taking the total confirmed cases of viral illness to 778. Three evacuated travelers are among the new cases.

District Anantnag and district Srinagar had the major share of today’s posi-tive cases - 11 each.

A group of people in Sri-nagar’s Narwara area tested positive today. This group of seven people has his-tory of contact with the Sri-nagar Municipal Corpora-tion (SMC) corporator who tested positive on Tuesday. Dr S Saleem Khan, head of social and preventive medi-cine (SPM) and nodal officer COCID19 at GMC Srinagar, said four of these are chil-dren. “One of them is a two year old and one is six year old while two others are aged 11,” he said.

Two people from Malpora Rainawari also tested posi-tive today. These have been traced following the history of the group of people who have recently tested posi-tive from the area, following death of an elderly woman. “All of these people are under quarantine,” he said.

A two year old from Habak is also among today’s

positives while one more from Kawdara also tested positive. With the new cases. The cumulative total of cases reported in this dis-trict reached 124.

In Anantnag, all of the 11 people are residents of Shan-gus and Kharpora villages taking the total number of cases reported so far from this southern district to 121.

One sample each from Kulgam and Ganderbal also tested positive. These samples, Dr Khan said, were of two patients currently admitted at Super Specialty Hospital Srinagar.

35 new positive cases in J&K, total 7787 contacts of SMC Corporator among new cases

COVID19 death toll touches 1,694; cases rise to 49,391

News | Page 7

Public transport may resume soon with guidelines:

GadkariNews | Page 7

Big success: Police, ArmySHABIR IBN YUSUF

Srinagar, May 6: The police and army Wednesday termed the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Riyaz Naikoo as a big suc-cess, saying that it will have an impact on militancy in Kashmir.

“Indeed this is a big suc-cess,” Inspector General

of Police, Kashmir, Vijay Kumar told the Greater Kashmir. “We will keep chasing them and more suc-cesses will come.”

General Officer Com-manding Victor Force, Major General Sen Gupta also termed it a big success. “We have eliminated a mili-tant that too a commander,”

SAQIB MALIK

Srinagar, May 6: The sus-pension of mobile phones and 2G internet service by the authorities across Kashmir on Wednesday has left people fuming for whom it was the only mode of communication and information amid the lockdown owing to Covid19. Several internet and telecom

subscribers told the Greater Kashmir that suspension of both calling and data services on mobile phones is a “major handicap” during the outbreak of Covid19.

While services of all mobile networks, except gov-ernment-owned BSNL were suspended on Wednesday

after two encounters broke out in south

Kashmir, only lim-ited service of BSNL Broadband was oper-

ational.Students using the

2G services for online class-es said the communication blockade had hit them badly. “Without internet I have lost

Delayed evacuation leaves stranded Kashmiris in distressReturn dates will be allocated once registration is over: Div Com

Militant held in Tral: PoliceSrinagar, May 6: Police today said that they arrested a militant in Tral.

“On a specific input, Awantipora Police along with security forces have arrested an active militant affiliated with militant outfit JeM in Tral area. The joint party of police and secu-rity forces apprehended the militant at Satura crossing after following the meticulous security drill. He has been iden-tified as Abdul Rashid Dar resident of Satura Tral affiliated with mili-tant outfit JeM.

New Delhi, May 6: Warn-ing that widespread clo-sures of educational facili-ties present an unprec-edented risk to children's education and wellbeing, the UN agencies have laid down guidelines for reopen-ing of schools that have been closed in most parts of the world due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

According to the guide-lines framed by UNESCO, UNICEF, World Bank and the World Food Pro-gramme, the best interests

of children and overall public health consider-ations, based on an assess-ment of the associated benefits and risks to education, public health and socio-economic factor, must be central to national and local authorities' decisions to reopen schools.

The guidelines note that while there is not enough evidence yet to measure the impact of school clo-sures on the disease trans-

mission rates, the adverse effects of school closures on children's safety and

learning are well documented. Gains made in increas-ing access to chil-dren's education in recent decades risk being lost and, in the worse cases,

reversed completely.As per UNESCO esti-

mates, over 154 crore stu-dents are severely impact-ed by closure of educational

GK NEWS NETWORK

Srinagar, May 6: National Conference on Wednesday reiterated that discon-tinuing the annual Darbar Move will increase the gap between the two regions of J&K and cautioned the gov-ernment against scrapping the move saying the prac-tice helps foster unity and integrity between culturally diverse regions.

While reacting to the

recent HC order suggest-ing discontinuation of the age old practice, the party spokesperson Imran Nabi Dar said, “The practice of moving the secretariat between Jammu and Sri-nagar is a testimony to our complex history and tra-dition. Seeing it through the prism of only financial implications is erroneous. It is needless to mention how the practice has done a great

Discontinuing Darbar Move will increase gap between two regions: NC

SYED RIZWAN GEELANI

Srinagar, May 6: The stranded Kashmiri families, students and workers con-tinue to live a miserable life in outside states as they say the J&K government was delaying their evacuation despite registration a week ago.

The Greater Kashmir received scores of emails and distress calls from stranded

people including patients who complained that gov-ernment was not making efforts for their evacuation.

“We are around 25 people stranded in Janakpuri Delhi and around 12 among us are not in position to travel by road. We are running from pillar to post to get informa-tion about arrangements made for such patients but nobody is there to help us,” said one of the stranded

Kashmiris from Delhi.“Mere registration is not

going to help us but govern-ment should at least pro-vide proper information to the people stranded outside J&K,” he said.

Another group of stu-dents stranded in Pune com-plained that J&K govern-ment was buying time under the garb of registration and has not chalked out a proper

Italian researchers claim world's first COVID19 vaccine

IANS

Rome, May 6: Italian researchers have claimed that they have successfully devel-oped a vaccine to contain coronavirus (COVID19) which is likely to work on humans, a report said.

Luigi Aurisicchio, CEO of Takis, the firm developing the medication, said that a coronavirus candidate vaccine has neu-tralised the virus in human cells for the first time, the Arab News reported.

"This is the most advanced stage of testing of a candidate vaccine created in Italy. Human tests are expected after this summer," Aurisicchio was quoted as saying

to Italian news agency ANSA."According to the Spallanzani

Hospital, as far as we know we are the first in the world so far to have demonstrated neutralisation of the coronavirus by a vaccine. We expect this to happen in humans too," he added.

The researchers experi-mented with the vaccine on mice that had success-fully developed antibodies that blocked the virus from infecting the cells. They further observed that the five vaccine candidates generated

See Hizb...on Pg-06

See Shutting...on Pg-06

See Govt asks...on Pg-06 See Deadline...on Pg-06 See Govt extends...on Pg-06

See How can...on Pg-06 See Italian...on Pg-06

See Discontinuing...on Pg-06 See Delayed...on Pg-06

See Big success...on Pg-06

See Militant...on Pg-06

See Don’t use...on Pg-06 See 35 new...on Pg-06

People at damaged house at Beighpora. Security forces leaving the village after encounter — Mir Wasim/GK

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