New Delhi: The home ministry has defended the decision to impose traffic restriction on the national highway connecting the Kashmir Valley with rest of India, saying these will be in place only till May 31 to ensure safe passage for movement of convoys of security forces.
According to a statement issued by the home ministry, “Deliberate and mischievous disinformation is being spread about the recently imposed traffic restrictions on the national highway connecting Jammu with the Kashmir Valley. The state government of Jammu and Kashmir has already clarified in unambiguous terms, that out of seven days in a week, only reasonable restrictions have been imposed, that too for 12 hours, two days in a week. This has been done to ensure safe movement of forces and at the same time minimising the inconvenience to public.’’
Ministry officials claimed that the traffic restriction are in place only for 24 hours out of 168 hours every week, which in effect amounts to 15 per cent of the time. “While regulations for movement of civilian traffic were already in place during convoy movement, the state government has now come out with a planned movement of security forces on the national hig-hway for a short duration, up to May 31, 2019,’’ the statement further added.
The traffic restrictions, officials argued, are being put in place for a total of 15 days, to ensure safety and security of security personnel and has been done in view of the Pulwama terror attack. A similar unsuccessful attempt was also made on March 31, 2019.
