India, Oct. 27 -- Four new ministers were sworn in on Tuesday as Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah expanded his council of ministers to its maximum permissible strength of nine.

Lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha administered the oath of office to Ali Mohammad Sagar, Mir Saifullah, Shameema Firdous, and Altaf Ahmad Wani (Kalloo) at Lok Bhawan in Srinagar. All four new inductees represent constituencies in the Kashmir Valley.

Sagar took his oath in Urdu, while Saifullah, Firdous, and Wani did so in English. Prior to the ceremony, all sitting ministers had submitted their resignations to the chief minister as part of the reshuffle. Sports and technical education minister Satish Sharma was the only minister dropped. Instead of in...