| ULB, Panchayat members protest against admin at Pahalgam | | | SAAHIL SUHAIL
EARLY TIMES REPORT
ANANTNAG, Aug 16: A group of Panchayat and Urban Local Bodies members, who are under preventive custody at Pahalgam, on Sunday held a protest against the administration and demanded ‘unconditional’ release.
They held protest in hotel premises and on Pahalgam-Ganeshbal link road, raised high-pitched slogans. “We want justice and release the prisoners,” videos, circulated by the elected representatives show them shouting the slogans. “If Government can’t create peaceful atmosphere even after the abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir that doesn’t mean they will make us (elected representatives) scapegoats and they will keep us under custody,” Sofi Aarfat told Early Times.
Sofi said that the government was exposing its failures by putting the elected members under preventative detention. “We must be released immediately and allowed to work as people have issues and they need to be addressed,” he said, adding he and his colleagues were on hunger strike since Saturday evening.
Protesters said that even their families especially children weren’t even being allowed to go outside.
“Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Pahalgam (SDM) came to meet us and we conveyed him our issues.
He promised that he will take the issues with Deputy Commissioner Anantnag,” they told Early Times.
Last week, authorities in South Kashmir shifted a few hundred Panchayat members and political workers to safer places in south Kashmir areas after militants killed a Sarpanch, who was affiliated with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in Vessu area of Qazigund. Sajad Ahmad Khanday, a BJP leader and a sarpanch, was fired upon by militants from a close range outside his residence in Vessu in Kulgam district. He was immediately rushed to a hospital but succumbed to his injuries.
In July, militants had shot dead BJP leader Wasim Ahmad Bari, his father and brother in Bandipora area of north Kashmir. Earlier, Kashmiri Pandit Ajay Pandita, a sarpanch belonging to the Congress party from Anantnag, was killed by militants on June 8.
“Panchayat members and political workers belonging to Anantnag district have been shifted to Pahalgam till the finalization of plans related to providing them security,” an officer said.
On August 2, J&K Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha panchayat promised best possible security arrangements to Panchayat members.
“All arrangements (for security) have been made and they have also been reviewed.
Whatever best arrangements are possible, I want to assure you that will be done,” Manoj Sinha said this at a function in Srinagar which was held to honour sarpanchs and panchs of Jammu and Kashmir for their good work in their respective areas. |
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