[Reader-list] Was there a blockade?

[Shivam Vij शिवम् विज्]

It seems the blockade strategy of the BJP-RSS-SASS was givenm up after
it backfired.



At the mouth of tunnel to tumult
No blockade but long lock

SANKARSHAN THAKUR
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080813/jsp/frontpage/story_9686774.jsp

Banihal, Aug. 12: There is a lock on the burning Valley, two miles long.

We swept swiftly up the road from Jammu this morning, past Patnitop's
scenic pine resorts and the narrow gauge cut by the turbulent Chenab,
but found a swirl of concertina wiring thrown across this high gateway
into Kashmir.

Layers of security cordons stood blocking the Jawahar Tunnel, the
longest manmade road duct in Asia and the country's only land-link to
the trouble-ridden Valley — police, the CRPF and then jawans of the
Indian Army.

"Closed", a gum-booted, gun-wielding sentry said, "until further orders."

But why? "Orders," he bluntly repeated, unyielding, "Can't permit you
to pass, not even at your own risk."

It had begun to rain and the sentry's little shortwave set was
crackling in the slanted wind, spewing grim news from its oil-barrel
perch. Processions pouring out in torrents across the Valley. Defiance
of curfew. Violent engagement with security forces. Firing.
Retaliation. Deaths and injuries. More retaliation. A chain of cause
and effect ruinously whirring.

Bandipora, Ganderbal, Lafjan, Baramulla, Kangan, Rainawari, Haripora,
Patang, Badgam, Watlar, Wusan, Lal Chowk, even Kishtwar which is
located outside the Valley — a swelling directory of datelines fast
staining the landscape.

"Ab pata chala kuchh kyon nahi jane de rahe?" the sentry asked
sardonically as he arranged the concertina spools even more firmly
across the mouth of the tunnel. "Haalaat kharab hain janab," (Do you
get a little sense now of why we are not allowing you? Things are bad,
Sir.")

In the little highway hamlet of Banihal down below — the only Muslim
majority pocket this side of the Jawahar Tunnel — the Valley's tumult
was beginning to echo. A band of men carrying green flags had gathered
in the square and were calling out to residents on a megaphone. "Our
brothers and sisters across Banihal are in trouble, let us tell them
we stand in solidarity, let's tell them we are with them!"

The shanty shops of Banihal's one-lane bazaar lay shuttered, its
nervous residents looking on from half-ajar windows. But slowly as the
call rang out again and again, the band in the town square was joined
by trickles from the bylanes and soon became a flaming mob. It was
more than a kilometre long and spilled out on both sides of the
Jammu-Srinagar highway, a charged column on the march.

More green flags began to wave about in the taut air and then roll the
shrill slogans of Kashmiri insurrection. "Chalo Muzaffarabad!; hum kya
chahte: azaadi; Pakistan zindabad."

The elders frantically appealed for calm. "No commotion, please, no
violence," one of them cried out. "This is the hour of mourning. We
must respect our dead."

But youngsters on the fringe of the mob would have none of that. As
the procession rolled up the winding road, en route to the mosque,
they got more strident, fisting the air in the face of CRPF jawans and
policemen. The closer the securitymen pressed the procession, the
louder the slogans, the more ardent the green flags. "Pakistan
zindabad; hum ko chhordo, Hindustan."

The jawans, armed and ready to tear gas the mob at the first sign of
trouble, held their fire; the procession held its protest to angered
slogans, no more. But for three hours this afternoon, Banihal failed
precariously close to the chaos of violence.

"Anything could have happened," said a nervous but relieved Haji Abdul
Majid Banihali, a local elder who was among the lead cast of this
protest. "You can feel it in your veins, can't you, the crowd and the
forces are just testing each other? We got away with it today but I
can't say the same about tomorrow. There's anger bubbling over what's
happening in the Valley."

To either side of the protest, traffic lay coiled in the mountains
like a dead crocodile's tail.

Hundreds of trucks laden with goods on their way to the Valley and Leh
beyond it. Wheat, pulses, oil, medicines, other packaged food. Half a
dozen carriers packed with bewildered chickens clucking in their
cages. Even a busload of Amarnath pilgrims from Maharashtra who had
somehow blundered their way up to this impasse.

"We don't know what to do now, where to go," said Sudhakar Naik, who
arrived with his family of five from Nashik. "We can't go ahead and we
are not being allowed to return because there is a curfew all the way
down to Jammu. And it is getting cold."

Up close to the mouth of Jawahar Tunnel, scores of more trucks lay
girded along the bends, lost on the prospects of being able to
proceed. All of them loaded with goods, all headed to the Valley, all
posting puzzling questions on allegations of an economic blockade.

"We have been waiting two days at Banihal," said an irate truck driver
from Pathankot, carrying vegetable oils. "There was a disruption on
the road for a few days about a fortnight ago but the road has been
clear since. Who says trucks are not going? It is only here that the
security forces have blocked our way, nobody else did."

A little distance away, the sentry, now under an oversized olive parka
to shield against the rain, was waving off newer arrivals with his
gun. "Khabar nahi suni? Kashmir jal raha hain (Haven't you heard the
news? Kashmir is burning.)"
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