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| National Highway remains close: Rains diminish hopes | | |
Jammu, Feb 27
While the hopes to clear National Highway for vehicular movement diminished due to the heavy rainfall on Tuesday, hundreds of stranded passengers hold protest demonstration in Jammu against what they termed as government apathy towards their sufferings.
Reports from Ramban revealed that the efforts to re-open 300 kilometers long National Highway get a major set back today when the 110 meters road stretch repaired by Becon again suffered damage due to the heavy rain, which started lashing since last evening.
A Boarder Road Organisation engineer K Jain told this scribe that the work on the damaged stretch was suspended due to the fresh landslides and shooting stones at Panthihal. He added that the workers could not restore the work since this morning as there was no respite in the rains, which continue to lash since last evening.
Deputy Super intent of Police (Traffic) MS Bhat said that about 500 passengers crossed the damaged stretch on foot through a bridal path bridge. “However, this bridge has also suffered damage and we had to stop people from crossing the Nallah from this path”, he added.
Sources said that the continuous rains has affected the ongoing restoration work on the highway, which otherwise was likely to be opened on Thursday.
Meanwhile, large number of stranded passengers, including women, holds a protest demonstration at Indira Chowk, near General Bus Stand, here today. Shouting slogans against the government the protestors also staged a dharna and blocked disrupting the vehicular movement for about half an hour.
“Government is only making claims and media, while we have been suffering here from last more than a week”, said Ghulam Abbas, one of the protestors, adding, “There are number of women and children struggling in cold at Bus Stand, who have even nothing to eat”.
The protestors were demanding that arrangements should be made to airlift the stranded passengers to Srinagar. Police had a tough time to handle the situation as the road leads to Civil Secretariat. The protestors, however, later dispersed peacefully. |
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