First snowfall of season in Valley

The famous Ski resort of Gulmarg experienced the first snowfall of the season, while the plains across Kashmir valley were lashed by rains for the second day on Wednesday.

However, the movement of traffic on all vital roads, including 300-km Srinagar-Jammu and 434-km Srinagar-Leh national highways was smooth, official sources said.

It started to snow in Gulmarg hill resort, 52 km from here, around 11 am, much to the delight of the hoteliers and other people connected with tourism, which was hit hard by the agitation sparked by Amarnath land row.

“We are hopeful that the snowfall will attract tourists back to the valley,” said a hotelier, who claimed that the occupancy in the hotels in the hill resort fell to zero after the eruption of the agitation in the Valley in July.

Although the snowfall lasted for a brief period, small groups of tourists were seen enjoying the snow flakes.

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Gujjars paralyse Delhi

At least two persons were killed, one of them in police firing, and 14 security personnel injured in violent clashes between Gujjar demonstrators and the security forces in Delhi and Haryana on Thursday. The Gujjars took over the areas bordering the national capital and paralysed rail and road traffic, completely disrupting normal life till late in the afternoon.

One person was killed when the police opened fire on agitators, blocking traffic on the national highway at Patti Kalyana in Panipat district, while the other died in a stampede reportedly triggered by the police action at Samalkha in Haryana. State chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda ordered a magisterial inquiry into the circumstances leading to the death of the two persons.

On the war path over their demand for Scheduled Tribe status, the Gujjar community, observing "martyrs' day", poured into the national capital region since the early hours of the morning and blocked major roads leading to New Delhi. The security forces resorted to lathicharges, lobbed teargas shells and fired rubber bullets to disperse violent mobs at Mehrauli, Mathura Road, Gazaipur and Anand Vihar, among other areas. Nearly 110 agitators were detained by the police.

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