Shabir Ali
The residents of Pantha Chowk in Srinagar staged a protest on Tuesday morning to demand the completion of a footbridge in the area.
Raising slogans against the administration, the locals including women and children from Summerbugh said that despite so many years having passed the construction of the bridge has not been completed.
They said that the construction of the footbridge at Pantha Chowk was laid in 2017 by the former Minister for Public Works.
The bridge was laid down to connect the areas of Sunmerbugh, Karnabal with the Pantha Chowk. The locals speaking to The Kashmiriyat lamented that the work has been stopped on the footbridge a few years ago.
In Gandabal area, not very far away, 19 people, trying to cross the swelled waters in Jhelum drowned in a boat, causing death of at least 6 persons. The locals said that a bridge was left incomplete in the area lamenting that the bridge could have saved the precious lives.
“The absence of the this bridge forces the residents of the area to take boats and it is very scary when the water level exceeds. We cannot sit at home, we are not very rich people, we are hand to mouth people. We earn in the day and eat at the night,” said a protestor.
Expressing grief over how social media reacted to the unfortunate incident in the nearby Gandabal, a young protestor said, “We are not very rich and we cannot afford to sit at home, even when the weather is extreme. We cannot afford to keep our children at home, because in this era of growing prices, all of our family members including women are forced to take up work. In a world away from the rich, wealthy, we are barely surviving,” he told The Kashmiriyat.
He said that If they take the normal road, they would have to travel two to three kilometres to reach the same place.