KL Report
KUNZAR
Protests reverberated here in Kunzar town after Friday prayers with hundreds of people raising slogans against the immorality, wine selling and other objectionable ventures carried ‘under the garb’ of tourism on Srinagar- Gulmarg road.
People gathered at Kunzar Chowk after Friday prayers and took out a protest rally alleging that the authorities have failed to curb the ‘showroom menace’ wherein some showrooms and guest houses were selling wine and doing ‘objectionable trade’.
Protesters raised slogans, “sharab ko band karo, berah ravi phelane waloo ko lagam do, mujrimoon ko saza do, badnam showroomoon ko band karo” (Close wine selling, curb those who spread waywardness, punish the guilty, close notorious showrooms).
The protesters said that the unruly business of these showrooms was now open for one and a half year with a showroom at Dhobiwan flourishing waywardness and drugs against which the locals last year had protested.
“Recently in a guest house at Waihpora, locals and police caught hold of an illegal couple in objectionable position who were later arrested. Then came the news about Rahat Ghar, an orphanage near Chandilora where the minor Muslim girls were trained for dancing which in no-way is acceptable in a Muslim society, and now the Excise department and police has seized poppy (Fukki) worth Lakhs of rupees and also wine from two showrooms on the road,” the protestors said.
“Things are happening unabatedly as if it was normal trade. We were waiting for government action but it failed miserably and is registering mere FIRs when things get exposed,” one group of protestors alleged.
It is pertinent to mention here that police and Excise department on Thursday had seized 24 bags of poppy (Fukki) worth rupees ten lakh from Vishnu Dhaba, a showroom-cum-Dhaba on Srinagar-Gulmarg road and wine bottles from another show room at Batpora near Kunzar.
“Two persons have been arrested while the main culprit Ab Razaq Shah, the owner of the restaurant who is said to be the king pin of this trade, is absconding,” one of the protestors said.
Shah, a resident of Takiya Gonipora Kunzar, fled from the place, reports said. The two persons arrested were identified as Mushtaq Ahmad resident of Ratnipora and Abdul Ahad resident of Shrai Tangmarg.
Meanwhile Traders’ Federation of Tangmarg and Kunzar too expressed concern over the growing menace. And the religious scholars have taken serious notice of the growing menace of ‘showroom hooliganism’ and said that such things won’t be allowed to happen in the land of Baba Payam-Ul-Din Reshi (RA).
