Srinagar Dec 18 :- All Parties Sikh Coordination Committee (APSCC) has expressed dismay that despite having met people at the helm in Jammu & Kashmir from time to time minority status continues to be denied to the Sikhs of the union territory. The Committee said that mere assurances were given to the community members with no action being taken.
In a statement issued on the occasion of National Minority Day APSCC Chairman Jagmohan Singh Raina said that Sikhs met CMs like Dr. Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and Mehbooba Mufti from time to time and reiterated their demand for minority status. He said that these people ditched the community members by doing nothing in this regard while taking the garb of Article 370.
The APSCC Chairman said that although more than two years have passed since abrogation of Article 370 the minority status has not been given to the Sikhs of Jammu & Kashmir.
He said that most of the Central Acts have been implemented in Jammu & Kashmir but not the National Minority Act.
Raina said that meetings with the successive Home Ministers have also not yielded any result with the Sikhs being pushed to the wall. He said community members have suffered like anything during the past three decades ever since the onset of militancy in Jammu & Kashmir.
The APSCC Chairman said that benefits are being extended to a particular community at the cost of the Sikh community.
“Packages both job and economic have been extended to this particular community with the members of Sikh community being forced to bite the dust”,he added .(CNS)
Omicron: DAK reiterates demand to set up genetic testing lab in Kashmir
Srinagar, CNS, 18-Dec: With India reporting 101 cases of Omicron variant of Covid-19 so far, Doctors Association Kashmir (DAK) on Saturday has reiterated its demand to set up a genetic testing lab in Kashmir.
“That would help detect and track the new variant of Covid-19,” said DAK President and Influenza expert Dr Nisar ul Hassan.
The DAK President said genetic testing lab will not only help in identifying Omicron that might have sneaked into the valley, but will also check whether any new mutant has emerged in the region.
“Detecting the mutant would help plan appropriate and effective public health strategy to prevent and control the spread of the new variant in the valley,” he said.
Dr Hassan said tracing the variant early would be critical to prevent another deadly wave of Covid-19 like the one we saw earlier.
“Genetic testing can serve as an early warning system to guide public health response. It can help in identification of hotspots which is critical to plan targeted public health interventions to control the spread of the disease,” he said.
“Genome sequencing is imperative to understand how the variant is behaving in terms of infectivity, severity, response to treatment,” said Dr Nisar adding “we have seen how previous variants behaved differently in different populations.”
General Secretary DAK Dr Arshad Ali said Jammu and Kashmir is seeing a rise in the number of infections in fully vaccinated persons which could be due to the variant.
“We need to ramp up “random” genetic testing. Travel history alone should not be the deciding factor for sequencing the samples as Karnataka doctor, who was among the first two cases of Omicron had no travel history,” he said.
Spokesperson DAK Dr Riyaz Ahmad Dagga said with no genetic testing facility in Kashmir, samples are sent outside valley for sequencing which results in delay of test reports.
“If we don’t know the changes in the genetic structure of the virus, we are running blind; fighting a pandemic without doing adequate genome sequencing is almost fighting an unknown enemy,” he said.
“Omicron, a highly mutated variant appears to be more infectious than the previous Covid-19 variants. First identified in South Africa, the new variant has been detected in 85 nations. The virus is causing a massive spike in cases across Europe,” he added.
