News stories by Sana Altaf

SRINAGAR, Dic 23 (IPS) - Seventeen-year-old Afzal is an unusual orphan. Though his father died many years ago, his mother is still alive and living with Afzal's grandparents and younger siblings in a house not far from the orphanage where the boy has spent most of his teenage years.

SRINAGAR, India, Sep 16 (IPS) - Rashid was 12 years old when he picked up a gun and received armed training in Pakistan. He was caught by the Indian forces in 1992 and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. Five years later when he wished to return to a normal life, everyone turned away from him.

SRINAGAR, Jul 20 (IPS) - He dreamed of one day running on international athletic tracks and worked hard for seven long years to make this a reality.

Four years after three middle-aged men were murdered in cold blood in central Kashmir, their case lies forgotten, collecting dust in the court’s record room, while culprits roam free. Meanwhile, a young woman named Afroza lost a two-year battle to get her rapist punished, when her neighbour gave false evidence in court, thus facilitating the acquittal of the accused.

Recent research has found that over 90 percent of haemophilia patients across Kashmir are also affected by hepatitis due to the dearth of safe Anti- Haemophilic Factor (AHF) in the Valley.

While the Jammu and Kashmir Cricket Association is hogging headlines over the alleged embezzlement of sports funds, Kashmiri youth are gearing up to write history in Kashmir’s cricket record.

On Feb. 6, a young girl committed suicide by swallowing poison at her home in Kashmir. A few weeks later a teenaged girl from Srinagar hung herself at her residence.

Drug abuse, known to be widespread among youth in India’s northern Kashmir state, is now showing a new trend whereby teenage girls and women are increasingly turning into substance abusers and addicts.

Maheen was nine years old when she witnessed the death of her elder brother. At the age of 10 she saw the dead body of her neighbour, killed in the crossfire between Kashmiri rebels and Indian security forces, his guts spilled out on the road.

A few days after his wedding in 2008, Imran* was thrown behind bars in Srinagar’s central jail for the alleged abduction and rape of his wife Shafeen. Shafeen denied the charge against her newlywed husband. It was her parents, furious that the couple married against their wishes, who ensured that the young bridegroom languished in prison for two years, until he was bailed out in 2010.