Srinagar, July 05 (KNS): The Awami National Conference while welcoming the Amarnath pilgrims said that locals were being put to inconvenience in the name of Yatra and that transporters had to face hardships along the National Highway.
Addressing a press conference at the party headquarters on Tuesday, ANC senior vice-president Muzaffar Shah also welcomed the decision of LG led administration to facilitate movement of transporters along NH-44 amid yatra.
He said that Kashmiri people are the hosts of Amarnath Yatra and it is not a tradition in any part of the world to host the hosts but they are respected.
Shah said the movement of Kashmiri vehicles coming or going from the valley was being restricted at various places on Srinagar-Jammu highway, which was not a good practice.
He termed the recently revised advisory as a welcome step for transporters and said that the movement of other vehicles in the same manner should not be hampered.
"Even in 1990, when the situation was very bad and complicated, shops were not closed in the vicinity of the highway and movement of vehicles was not restricted," Shah said, adding that security is fine, and do not want to interfere in this matter, but people can not be enslaved in the name of security.
Shah said that recently LG invited political leaders, during which the political leaders gave him a number of suggestions.
Commenting over hoisting of tricolour in every house, Shah said that the tricolour has been flying in Jammu and Kashmir since 1947 with the state flag and no one has desecrated it.
"What does the BJP want to prove by issuing a tricolor decree to every house in Kashmir only? Does it want to prove that Kashmir is not with us. It would not be a matter of forcibly hoisting the flag but people would like to hoist the flag from the heart,” he said, while demanding revoking the order.
Describing the arrest of a militant in Jammu and his affiliation with the BJP as worrisome, Shah said that if a picture of another party leader had surfaced with the militant, action would have been taken against him by now.
Shah demanded that authorities should go to the bottom of the matter and investigate it as some incidents have taken place in Jammu and Kashmir in the past and security and investigation agencies should investigate whether anything is being covered up.
Meanwhile, expressing concern over the stunts on motorcycles by the youth, he said that parents lose their loved ones, but this series of road accidents is not going to stop.
He urged parents to protect their children from such stunts and also urged the civil society, Ulema and traffic police to play their role. (KNS)