J&K highway curbs completely lifted

SRINAGAR: The Jammu and Kashmir government on Wednesday announced complete lifting of the ban on civilian traffic movement on the Baramulla-Srinagar stretch of the vital National Highway-44, which connects Kashmir Valley with rest of the country.

It said that there would be no restrictions on civilian movement along the 55-km Srinagar-Baramulla stretch of the road on Sundays or Wednesdays. Earlier, on April 22, the authorities had partially lifted the ban on the use of this portion of the highway by civilians, making it limited only to Sundays instead of two days (Sunday and Wednesday).

The restrictions twice weekly would, however, continue along the 272-km Srinagar- Udhampur section of the highway, a statement issued by the state government in winter capital Jammu on Wednesday said.

At the same time, the government promised to review its decision periodically and said that further relaxation would be made “as the need for restriction reduces”.

The state government had in April imposed a complete ban on civilian traffic movement along the Baramulla-Udhampur section of the 350-km long highway between 4 am and 5 pm on Sundays and Wednesdays till May 31. It had said that the decision was taken “keeping in view the large movement of security forces on the national highway during the parliamentary elections and associated possibility of fidayeen terror attack on security forces’ convoys”.

It also said that the additional security personnel were being brought in for anti-militancy operations.

The decision was taken following a directive from the Union home ministry in the backdrop of the February 14 terror attack on a CRPF convoy at Lethapora (Pulwama) along the highway, which left as many as 49 security personnel dead and several others wounded.

The government had said that another “possible fidayeen attack” on another security force convoy at Banihal took place on March 30.

However, the move evoked strong criticism by political parties, social and trade groups in J&K and beyond. There have been protests in Srinagar and elsewhere against the ban, which has been termed as “callous, absurd and anti people” by critics. Also, on each day of the ban, chaos has been witnessed in the Valley, mainly on the roads connecting with the highway, and the supplies of essential commodities and other good to the Valley have been badly affected.

Following this, the authorities said that over one hundred duty magistrates have been deployed along the highway to issue special travel passes for emergency services on the ban days.