Srinagar: PDP MLA Waheed Para on Tuesday raised in the Assembly the issue of security-related restrictions on the Srinagar-Jammu national highway, and urged the government to take it up with the Unified Command and the Centre to put an end to the “discrimination” faced by locals.
“It has created a real sense of humiliation for all of us, like a Berlin Wall,” Para, the MLA from South Kashmir’s Pulwama, said during the Zero Hour, while flagging frequent stoppages and restrictions on the highway in South Kashmir during convoy movement, Amarnath Yatra and the tourist season.
The MLA said that the concerns of residents must be addressed while maintaining necessary security arrangements and ensuring dignity and equal treatment for people using the highway.
“Whenever we set out from there in the morning — though we travel as VIPs and our roads are cleared — the common people face immense hardships. It has become a sense of discrimination.
“Every day, whether it is for tourists, the Yatra or convoys, the locals — the very people who gave their land, who built the highway — are stopped. Every day, they are forced to wait for 10 to 15 minutes,” he said.
Para said that the residents should not be made to bear the consequences of security-related restrictions and should not be treated as a problem or subjected to unnecessary hardship in their own region.
“If today, even after 70 years, a Kashmiri cannot walk along the highway with the rest of the nation, if this discrimination continues just because of a single past attack, it represents a grave inequality,” he said.
Para urged the elected government to take up the issue with security agencies and the Unified Command to review the existing restrictions to ensure that security measures do not result in “discrimination, humiliation or unnecessary disruption” of civilian movement.
“The government must take this up with the Government of India, with the security forces, with the CRPF. I think all of us need to raise this issue: this discrimination on the highway must end, and it should be taken up with the Unified Command,” he said.
Supporting Para, National Conference (NC) MLA Abdul Majeed Larmi said the Assembly should send a recommendation or pass a resolution urging the Centre to put an end to it.
“I acknowledge that this does not come under our purview; our government cannot directly handle this as it pertains to the Home department. However, a recommendation can be sent. Ever since the Pulwama incident occurred, from then until today, we have been suffering,” Larmi said.
He said people are “suffering immensely because vehicles are stopped at every single spot”.
“If someone has an emergency, even they are not allowed through,” the MLA claimed,
“So, it would be very kind of you (Speaker) if a resolution is passed here and conveyed to the Government of India. Tell them that while we agree security is necessary and the security forces guarding out there are doing so for our sake, we are not against them. Let them do their duty, but at least spare the sick and the children,” he added.
