A new wine shop that has come up in the Pantha Chowk area has led to widespread outrage in the Kashmir valley with locals demanding its closure.
Speaking to The Kashmiriyat the locals from Pantha Chowk expressed anguish and said that the shop has come up adjacent to a mosque and a school in the area.
“We may be a weak society right now. But our weaknesses should not be exploited. Kashmiris have never been in support of the wine shops and will never be. We demand that the shop shall be removed from here,” Altaf Ahmed Shah, a local resident said.
Altaf said that the administration should respect the religious sanctity of Kashmir and not hurt the religious sentiments of the local residents. “Opening up wine shops inside a residential area, besides a mosque is quite disrespectful to any Kashmiri,” he said.
The opening of the shop has also been widely condemned by political parties including the Jammu Kashmir National Conference and the People’s Democratic Party who demanded immediate closure of the wine shop.
“Opening an alcohol shop at places where there is no tourist footfall in Kashmir is sheer irony. More so, a wine shop has come up in the vicinity of perhaps the largest school in Kashmir. When a number of states, including Gujarat, do not permit the sale of alcohol, this ‘license’ is for much more than what seems,” Imran Nabi Dar of Jammu Kashmir National Conference said.
“Wide condemnations on J&K administration’s move to open wine shop at Pantha Chowk. This will not only indulge youth into new addiction but will also have serious ramifications on society, morally. Admin must roll back the order of opening wine shop at Pantha Chowk,” Imran tweeted.
“In the garb of tourism government is pushing youth towards liquor. There are states in India that have tourism and yet alcohol is banned. This will have a cascading effect on our youth,” NC youth leader Ahsan Pardesi said.
Governor-led administration had said that 51 new wine shops will be opened in Jammu Kashmir, six of them in the Kashmir valley. Earlier the shops were shut in Kashmir after massive protests during the decade of 1980s.