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| JKNPP protests seeking abolition of Toll Plazas in Jammu | | |  Early Times Report
Jammu, July 23: Withstanding the public fury over the establishment of Toll plazas one after the other and the proposal to open several liquor vends in Jammu region, activists of Panther activists led by Harsh Dev Singh Chairman Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party (JKNPP) and Yashpaul Kundal State President Young Panthers staged a protest demonstration in Jammu here today.
While setting ablaze the effigy of BJP and raising anti-government slogans, the enraged protesters sought abolition of Lakhanpur Toll Plaza besides others and demanded immediate roll back of the proposal mooted for issuing new licenses of liquor shops in the interest of the people.
Lambasting the BJP government for installing Lakhanpur Toll Plaza on the gateway of J&K and keeping in pipeline the construction of two more plazas, one at Fallan Mandal on the Ring road and another on Akhnoor road, Harsh Dev Singh said that the move was fraught with dangerous portends. He said that people of Jammu were wary of even the existing Toll Plazas at Ban and Sarore which were taxing them heavily in addition to another one at Nashri.
“The people were up in arms against the government seeking disbanding of these Toll Plazas. With BJP leadership cheating them by false assurances amid revival and establishment of Lakhanpur Toll Plaza had turned the civil unrest from bad to worse with massive public outrage”, Harsh rued. Describing the establishment of Lakhanpur Toll Plaza and other installations as points of forced extortion of taxes from the people, he said that with the plan to install 6 Toll Plazas in the vicinity of Jammu, the huge taxation in the form of multiple Toll Plazas was simply unaffordable for the common masses and particularly those who had to commute on regular basis between Jammu, Akhnoor, Katra, Udhampur, Samba and Lakhanpur. He accused the GoI of doling discrimination to Jammu region in view of only one such Toll Plaza functional in Kashmir while the Dogras were put under the burden of road tax to fill up its coffers, Harsh roared.
Further, terming the proposal of opening of new116 liquor vends in Jammu as mooted by the Excise Commissioner vide his letter dated 16-06-2020 government as ill conceived and motivated, Mr. Singh said that it would only invite disaster in view of already frayed public tempers especially the youth and women against the govt. He further disclosed that the Excise Commissioner J&K had sent an official memo to the government seeking approval for opening the said liquor shops at locations already finalized by him in Jammu. “There are already 220 liquor vends in Jammu out of the total 224 existing liquor shops operating as on date. Already there is huge number of liquor shops, bars besides illicit distillation being carried on various parts of J&K. Every day there are reports of domestic violence, fatal road accidents and liquor smuggling. Spike in cases of women atrocities, young deaths and crime has ruined thousands of families”, divulged Harsh. Prominent among those who spoke on the occasion included Rajesh Padgotra, Gagan Pratap Singh, Naresh Chib, Ravinder Singh Jamwal, Rakesh Gupta, Yash Paul Sharma, Khajur Singh, Hakim Din, Ved Raj Sharma, Gurprem Angrual besides others.
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