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Rifat Mohidin
Tribune News Service
Srinagar, August 25
Less than a dozen people surrounding a stall selling second hand T-shirt stood under a vast Chinar tree in Srinagar’s Lal Chowk on Sunday.
It was among the three stalls visible on the desolate Sunday market that would usually witness crowd of hundreds of residents from all districts of Kashmir and would often force the halt of traffic on one side due to the rush.
On Sunday, there were no security deployments and the relaxation continued in this part of the city where authorities were allowing people to open markets but people as well as vendors have stayed away after the restrictions were lifted.
“We have no other means of protesting right now. Everything has been crushed. This is the way people are telling that there is no normalcy in Kashmir,” says Manzoor Ahmad, a hawker, who came out to take stock of the situation on Sunday. “It is hard for us as we have families to feed, but we have no other option”.
With public and most private transport off the roads, the residents also prefer to stay indoors in the current situation. The restrictions continue to be in place in some places in the Valley but mostly they have been lifted from 59 police stations according to officials. But the markets continue to be shut.
“People go for shopping when they are happy, when they have the basic things in life. This time everyone is angry and struggling,” said Shakeel Baba, a local who owns a shop in Lal Chowk. “We are suffering from all sides, trade has suffered, but what can we do? We have witnessed these phases in the past as well”.
The Sunday market in Srinagar is normally the most crowded place on Sunday which forces the authorities to shut the public transport on the stretch as there is a large rush of people buying second hand stuff. But for the last two Sundays it has been deserted.