Fayaz Bukhari
SRINAGAR, Apr 4: The tough curbs on the civilian traffic along the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway (NH-44) has provoked outrage in Kashmir among people ahead of Parliamentary elections, the polling for which is slated to begin from next week.
The Government last evening issued an order putting two day restrictions in a week on the movement of the civilians on the only surface link connecting Kashmir with rest of the country. The curbs will be on around 300 kilometer long highway from Udhampur to Baramulla.
Not to talk of others, lakhs of people from Baramulla to Udhampur live on either side of the highway and they will be directly affected by the curbs. The Valley’s several hospitals including SKIMS hospital Bemina, where thousands of sick visit every day, is located right on the highway besides several schools.
Principal Secretary Home Department, Shaleen Kabra, told Excelsior that the restriction on the movement will be in addition to the already imposed restrictions on the highway. The life has already been hit hard by the curbs on the movement of civilians during the movement of the convoys and security force vehicles after February 14 attack on CRPF convoy at Letpora in Pulwama district.
Kabra said the measures have been taken to safeguard the civilian and security forces lives. He said that lot of movement of troops is going to be on the highway for next two months and measures were taken not to cause inconvenience to the people. However, he said that the local administration and Police will regulate the emergencies on the highway during restrictions.
PDP president and former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti today lashed out at the Centre on new curbs, and called them dictatorial. “Last I checked, we were a democracy. But this sounds like a diktat of martial law. After bringing Kashmir to the brink, the administration is adamant on ensuring collective punishment of Kashmiris”, she tweeted.
Former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, too in a series of tweets slammed the restrictions. “Has anyone in the administration applied their minds before planning to issue this highway closure order? Jammu and Kashmir is not Chhattisgarh or Andhra Pradesh where there are alternate routes. Here if you close the national highway you shut down all access to the Valley. This is a lifeline.”
Congress leader and MP, Ghulam Nabi Azad, said the Government “should work out a more people-friendly strategy than disallowing all civilian traffic for two days in a week”.
Hurriyat Conference (M) Chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq termed the curbs as ‘dictatorial move’, saying it will cause great distress to the people. “Another anti people dictatorial move of the Government to close the National Highway for two days which will cause great distress to people. Government should withdraw this diktat and stop punishing people of Kashmir,” Mirwaiz tweeted.
Chairman of Kashmir Private Schools Association, G N Var, told Excelsior that the already imposed restrictions on the movement are affecting our education system badly. “Now we can’t run schools under these circumstances. What is the fun of running the schools? They are pushing Kashmir into darkness. We will take a call on this shortly”, he said.
The Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry castigated the Government’s order on curbs saying that the move would put the whole population to “unimaginable inconvenience” and will have “disastrous consequences” for the State’s economy.
KCC& I president Sheikh Ashiq said that the order has been issued without considering its impact on the population and indicates Government’s ignorance of local problems.
He said that even without the formal banning of civilian movement, travelling on the highway is already a nightmare and only necessary and unavoidable traffic movement is being conducted. “The banning will bring further chaos and confusion. It will also impede the movement of goods including essentials like sheep, poultry, etc and raise the transportation costs. Airfares would also escalate,” he said.
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