Restrictions have been re-imposed in Srinagar
SRINAGAR: Prohibitory orders banning large gatherings was re-imposed in Srinagar today, a day after the government said sporadic clashes took place in the city after the restrictions were relaxed yesterday.
According to sources, police vehicles were seen making announcements on loudspeakers asking people to return to their homes, and shopkeepers have been told to shut their shops.
After relaxing the strict ‘curfew’ in the run-up to Eid, which falls on Monday. Restrictions have been re-imposed.
Restrictions regarding large gatherings were re-imposed in Srinagar on Sunday. The restrictions were relaxed yesterday. The government said that sporadic clashes took place in the city after the ban was relaxed.
Police chief Dilbagh Singh said that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s claims of huge protest aren’t true. He said that there has been no untoward incident “barring minor stone-pelting which was dealt with on the spot”
Around 400 politicians including former chief ministers Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti have been under arrest since last week.
With the unprecedented government clampdown and information blockade in Kashmir entering its second week, banks and ATMs are falling short of cash, local and wholesale markets and chemist shops are running out of supplies, and bakeries, grocery shops and markets for sacrificial sheep are seeing very few buyers on Sunday.
Last monday ,the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government scrapped the special status guaranteed to Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 of the Indian constitution, and vertically broke the state into two union territories, bringing the region under its direct control.
On the same day, just before dawn, the government imposed a de facto‘curfew’ and detained most of the top pro-India leaders. Almost all separatist leaders are already behind bars. All major roads, bridges and alleys in the Valley are being manned by the army, paramilitary forces and the Jammu and Kashmir police.
Deputy commissioner, Srinagar Shahid Iqbal on Wednesday denied that the government had imposed a curfew in the city and insisted that only restrictions under Section 144 were in place, prohibiting the movement of more than four people together.
“I do not have even a single penny left. Eid is approaching and my kids want me to buy them new clothes,” Abdul Ghaffar, a resident of Habak, said outside a branch of the Jammu and Kashmir Bank in Hazratbal.
Employees who had reached the branch said “We do not have any cash in the bank chest. The people will get angry,” a banker said. “Even the ATMs have run dry.”
Although the administration run by governor Satya Pal Malik announced that the people would be allowed to buy essentials on Eid, many said that in the absence of cash, there was not much they could afford to buy.
The emerging situation will probably mean that a majority of residents in the besieged Valley will miss one of the biggest rituals of Islam, the qurbani or sacrifice on Eid. Soon after the imposition of ‘curfew’, the herds of sacrificial animals vanished from the market.
Omar Abdullah’s National Conference has appealed in the Supreme Court against the government’s decision. In its petition – filed by party MPs Akbar Lone and Hasnain Masoodi – the party claimed the centre’s move was “illegal”.(With Agency Inputs ).
