| Stranded passengers rue administrative apathy | | Swine flu scare rides over food, water woes | |  Bivek Mathur
Early Times Report
Jammu, Mar 17: With the only arterial link between Jammu and Kashmir-the NH1A closed for the vehicular traffic on the second day today, passengers stranded at different locations en-route Jammu-Srinagar are scared of Swine Flu and are anguished at absence of any government machinery despite the fact that hundreds of people are stranded on the highway in hostile conditions.
Trapped passengers are mostly the labourers from Rajasthan, Gujarat, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, and Bihar besides locals from Kashmir as well as other districts of the state who had gone to other states for one or other reasons.
"Where is the state health department? More than food and water, we want security of life. There could be suspected H1N1 patients among us here in General Bus Stand, Jammu. With this, the risk of spreading this epidemic has increased manifolds as the passengers have been crammed into the sheds of Bus Stand like sheep and goats and the health department has not issued any advisory for them", said Firdous Ahmed and Mir Zubair, both Indian Army soldiers, residents of Kupwara who are trapped at General Bus Stand Jammu for the last two days.
Tikhan Paswan is among five other stranded labourers of Banka district in Bihar who were sent back to Jammu from Udhampur district by the administration after heavy snowfall in upper reaches of the Jammu three days back.
Mir Zaman Khan, resident of Ahmedabad, Gujarat along with nine members of the family including women is stranded for the last 4 days in Jammu. He said government should avail some food items to the stranded passengers so that they can save something for their return journey.
Octogenarian Abdul Salam Bhat of Bijbehara said that he had gone to Amritsar for the treatment of his wife but for the last two days he along with Abdul Hameed, a septuagenarian of the same village with his wife and kids are stranded at Bus Stand. |
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