The J&K police has raised an alarm over the ‘reprisal attacks’ on non-locals living in Kashmir, after the reports of intimidation of non-local workers in Srinagar’s Kara Nagar and Bandipora areas.
A senior police officer at the police headquarters said the situation was “being monitored closely as a few incidents of intimation has started pouring in.”
“There were two minor incidents of intimidation at a sweets shop in Srinagar and workers in Bandipora. Some bike-borne youth tried to intimidate non-local workers. However, locals intervened and doused the situation,” said the police officer. The police said it fears that viral videos of alleged violence emerging from across the country against Kashmiri students and traders are “fuelling tension and anxiety in Kashmir Valley.”
The administration is mulling to extend winter vacations of schools and colleges in Kashmir to avoid any law and order situation.
Meanwhile, posters were pasted by a few doctors at Srinagar’s premiere health institute Shri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital (SMHS) barring representatives of pharmaceutical companies Zydus, Macleods, Intas and Sun Pharma following the move by the Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Limited “to suspend" three Kashmiri sales executives, Rounak Bashir Bhat, Arif Bashir and Sheikh Shabir Ahmad, "for their Facebook posts".
“It has been reported that you started posting hateful messages on your Twitter handle in the wake of Pulwama attack. Your tweet is insensitive in nature and has brought disrepute to the image of our organisation,” reads the notice issued to one of the sales representative.
Non-locals hold protest
Meanwhile, scores of non-locals staying in Kashmir held a demonstration in Srinagar and demanded “an end to the attacks on Kashmiris outside the State.” “It is unfortunate that people from Kashmir were at the receiving end in the country after the Pulwama attack. This demonstration is to demand an end to such attacks,” one of the traders said.
said a non-local goldsmith in Srinagar, who has been living in the J&K's capital for the past 25 years.
The protesters said that non-locals working were “feeling secure in Kashmir but the treatment meted out to Kashmiris is not a positive development.”
According to an official figure, around six lakh non-Kashmiri workers travel to the State every year to work in different sectors, especially the construction business.
Attacks in Kashmiris a collective shame: separatists
Separatist amalgam Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL), comprising Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Yasin Malik Wednesday said the unrelenting attacks in Kashmiri businessmen, students, tourists “was distressing”.
“The videos and photographs of Kashmiris being beaten, humiliated, looted, vandalized and oppressed in various Indian states will only push more Kashmiri youth to the wall and the path of rebellion,” they said.
The Mirwaiz said such attacks “is a collective shame for India”.
The separatist leaders said Kashmiris throughout the history “safeguarded religious harmony and protected all outsiders living or working here and we will stand firm and provide safety, relief and other assistance to every Former chief minister and National Conference vice president asked the Prime Minister to condemn the attacks. "Dear PM Narendra Modi sahib, can we please have a few words of condemnation for the systematic attacks directed against Kashmiri students and others or does your concern not extend as far north as Kashmir?" he said.
