Traffic ban on highway throws life out of gear in J&K

As the ban on movement of civilian traffic on Srinagar-Jammu national highway for two days, a week came into force on Sunday, there was chaos as hundreds of vehicles were stranded on intersections with people pleading forces to allow them to move on.

The report said army, police and paramilitary CRPF personnel were deployed at all intersections leading to the highway to ensure that civilian traffic does not interfere with the movement of convoys of security forces, causing inconvenience to the public.

Security forces have erected barricades and concertina wires to restrict the civil traffic movement on the highway. Inspector General Police (IGP) Traffic, Alok Puri said sector magistrates accompanied by DSPs have been deployed on the highway to oversee the convoy movement.

“In case of any exigency, magistrates will allow only that vehicle, that too after proper verification and checking. Otherwise no civilian vehicle will be allowed,” he said.

To facilitate the movement of security convoys for the parliamentary polls starting April 11, the government has banned civilian traffic twice a week (from 4 am to 5 pm on Sunday and Wednesday) on a 270-km stretch of the highway from Udhampur in Jammu to Baramulla in north Kashmir. The order shall remain in force till May 31.

The ban was imposed to prevent any attack similar to the suicide bombing on Jammu-Srinagar highway in February that killed 40 CRPF soldiers. However, the ban has drawn flak from various sections of the society.

Regional National Conference leader and former chief minister Omar Abdullah while describing the ban as ‘mindless’, tweeted: ““Driving to Uri I’m getting to see first hand the extent of disruption & inconvenience that is being caused to people because of the mindless highway closure order that is in place today.”

Peoples Conference (PC) chairman, Sajad Lone, former ally of the BJP, said that the banning of civilian movement on highway is turning into humanitarian disaster and requested the Governor SP Malik to scrap the order.

“The highway ban is now turning into a humanitarian disaster. Flooded will calls from across the state. People in dire need to travel in order to tend to their day to day needs of survival stuck in a state of helplessness. @jandkgovernor urgently needs to scrap the inhuman order,” Lone twitted.

A senior journalist wrote on social media that people going to attend the election rallies have also been stopped from travelling on the highway. “Scenes & videos from the Highway in #Kashmir are a reality check at a time when government is conducting #elections. Some people going to rallies in north #Kashmir also stopped. First day of weekly two day travel ban on #Highway (Sun&Wed) for movement of convoys of troopers (sic),” he wrote.