At least five persons including two women and three Wildlife department officials were injured in a leopard attack in Ganderbal on Wednesday. The leopard was however, captured alive by the authorities.

An official said that locals spotted a leopard roaming in the area and informed the department concerned, following which a massive hunt was launched.

He said that two women amongst three wildlife officials got injured after they were attacked by the leopard during the search operation.

After hectic efforts the leopard was captured alive by the Wildlife officials, he said.

Meanwhile, the injured have been shifted to a nearby medical facility for treatment. (KNO)

SRINAGAR: Inspector General of Police Kashmir V K Birdi on Friday greeted people, police and security personnel on the occasion of MahaShivratri.

Taking on to the X Platform, The Kashmir Zone Police while quoting IGP Kashmir posted, " IGP Kashmir extends warm greetings to the people of valley and police/security forces personnel on MahaShivratri. Wishing everyone a blissful festival, he hopes it fosters joy, happiness, and strengthens brotherhood and communal harmony in the valley. (GNS)

SRINAGAR: Thirty three people were killed dead and at least 22 others injured when a bus they were traveling in skidded off the road and fell into gorge in Assar Doda. 

Official sources told GNS that so far 33 fatalities have been confirmed and 22 others are injured in the accident involving bus bearing number Jk02CN-6555. 

Soon after the accident, locals and authorities started massive rescue operations. 

"More details awaited". (GNS)

Talking to reporters on the sidelines of a function at Dak Bunglow Kupwara, he said that only those eligible people who are landless will get 5 Marla land from the government.

“Any person who did not have his own land, Jammu and Kashmir government will provide him 5 marlas land under the PMAY scheme”, the Lieutenant Governor said.

Sinha, who was on a two-day visit to Kupwara district, also said that the border district will be connected with the rail link soon.

"The Railway Minister has already sanctioned a budget for a technical survey of rail project connecting to the district. Once the survey is completed, Detailed Project Report (DPR) will be submitted”, he said and added “Kupwara will be connected with the rail link soon.”

The LG said that Kupwara is on the path of prosperity and development even though the security situation has improved as well in the past three years.

“Common man is living a peaceful life here. This district has seen a significant improvement in the agriculture and allied sector. Both growth and production has increased,” he said.

Sinha said that infrastructure development has also seen significant improvement.

“Roads have been developed. Remote areas have been connected with road connectivity. A lot of work has also been done on the transmission and distribution of power supply as well. Compared to the past, our strength has improved to a great exten,” he said.

He said that Kupwara is witnessing a bloom in the tourism sector and a lot of work is being done for its further growth. A lot of tourists visited the place during the past few years.

The Lieutenant Governor said that the establishment of Government Medical College (GMC) is also a great step.

Sinha said the areas in the district which used to remain closed for 6 months are now seeing electricity for the first time. He said work on road connectivity, water supply and electricity has been going at a good pace and about 70 per cent of the work has been completed on connecting water taps to each household.

By the end of this year, 100 per cent of the target will be achieved,” the Lieutenant Governor said.

He said the administration has been able to bring transparency and have adapted to the pro-people approach and a new dawn of development is being written in Kupwara district.

Earlier during the day, the Lieutenant Governor paid obeisance at Mata Kheer Bhawani Asthapan Tikkar Kupwara and prayed for peace, prosperity, happiness and well-being of one and all. (UNI)

SRINAGAR: Criminals have found an innovative method to loot money from naïve people by using computer-generated voice sounds of victims’ friends and relatives. All this they are doing with the help of Artificial Intelligence based applications.

Jammu Kashmir Police in this regard have issued an advisory asking people to stay alert.

“The Artificial Intelligence-based voice cloning is the new cyber crime in news. Apple Ios7 and various apps and sites like Heyge, Murf and Resemble Al etc. are being used for voice cloning,” police in advisory has noted.

The advisory reads that the criminals are using computer generated voice sound to act as friends and relatives and in the process, money can be lost.

Sharing the modus operandi, police said that the Ai-ml (artificial intelligence/ machine learning) model learns the patterns and characteristics from the person’s voice recordings. (speech patterns, accents, voice inflection and even breathing).

Police stated that learning includes pronunciation of words, tone of the voice and emotions. Now criminals use this Al-ml model to convert text to speech as it generates a waveform to represent the sound of any person.”“

The computer-generated call is then used by the criminal to call his/her relatives or friends and based upon the familiarity of the voice, the victim ends up paying the money,” he said.

Police however, spreading awareness on the concern said that the receiver must listen carefully to unnatural pause or robotic speech styles, look for errors in pronunciation or speaking tone.

“The voice can be compared with the original person and notice if the voice lacks emotional expression or difference.” 

“The receiver must always try to call the original person with the saved number to recheck, adding, “the voice sample or recordings shall not be shared to an unknown person while limiting access to sensitive voice recordings or audio files.” (KNT)

SRINAGAR: In order to ensure appropriate and necessary arrangements to facilitate general public to observe forthcoming religious festivals of Shab-e-Qadr, Jumat  ul Vida and Eid ul Fitr, the Divisional Commissioner (Div Com) Kashmir, Vijay Kumar Bidhuri today chaired a meeting of officers to review facilities put in place by District Administrations and line departments.

The meeting was attended by Deputy Commissioners, Commissioner SMC, officers of Waqf Board, FCS&CA, PHE, PDD, R&B, Animal Husbandry, Sheep Husbandry, Health, Traffic Police, Metrology and other line departments.

During the meeting, the Div Com reviewed the availability of essential items, Ration, mutton and poultry in markets for the celebration of festivals.

He was briefed that there is abundance of all the essential items in the market and people would be facilitated through the arrangements of sale points of poultry on all the three occasions.

Div Com directed for the constitution of Joint Enforcement and Market Checking teams to check the quality of food items and illegal profiteering by traders, besides he instructed concerned to inspect the hygiene of workshops of Bakers & Confectioners.

The meeting was briefed about the availability of electricity and drinking water across the Kashmir valley.

With special focus on prime religious places where people throng in large numbers for congregational prayers, Div Com directed concerned officers to ensure availability of power back up, water tankers and sanitation at the Hazratbal Shrine and other mosques and shrines.

He also directed for publication of Traffic routes leading to Hazratbal Shrine and availability of RTC buses for the convenience of devotees.

Additionally, he directed SMC to conduct sanitation drives at Shrines and Mosques besides conducting cleanliness drives of roads to ensure dust free Eid.

The concerned officer of the Health Department was instructed to establish medical camps at Hazratbal Shrine and other places besides educating people regarding Covid Appropriate Behavior.

Bidhuri also appealed to people to adopt Covid Appropriate Behavior (CAB) during congregation prayers on the auspicious occasions as a precautionary measure to avoid spread of Covid-19. (GNS)

SRINAGAR: Residents of Chinar colony in Chak Kawoosa area of Narbal Budgam on Tuesday said that there is no water supply in the area from last six days.

A group of residents from the area told GNS that there is no piped water supply and as such they have to depend on water tankers. “From last six days, no water tanker has been deputed to our area as a result of which we face tremendous difficulties,” the residents said.  

They also alleged that their phone calls and resort to online complaints mechanisms have not yielded any results so far.

“We urge authorities concerned to have some pity and depute water tankers to our area. At least they should imagine difficulties faced by people without water,” the residents said and urged the authorities address the issue on “humanitarian basis.” 

Repeated attempts to contact concerned AEE for comments did not fructify. (GNS)