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SRINAGAR: Hurriyat Conference president Mirwaiz Umar Farooq called Friday for J&K to beryllium made a “dry authorities similar Gujarat” arsenic helium opposed authorities’ determination to unfastened much liquor shops, claiming specified steps were “a deliberate effort to propulsion our youths further into addiction”.“J&K is simply a Muslim-majority portion and merchantability and depletion of liquor is against Islam’s tenets,” Mirwaiz said during Friday prayers astatine Srinagar’s Jamia Masjid. The trigger was a protestation the erstwhile time by locals successful Srinagar’s Batmaloo against the opening of a liquor store successful the country that had not seen specified outlets for decades.“If Gujarat tin beryllium declared a adust state, determination is nary crushed wherefore J&K should beryllium exempted,” Mirwaiz said.
This was the archetypal telephone to protestation successful caller months connected immoderate contented from Mirwaiz, who is besides main cleric of Kashmir and has been enactment successful location detention up of Friday prayers connected galore occasions successful the past fewer months.Mirwaiz urged the state’s Omar Abdullah-led National Conference govt and lieutenant-governor Manoj Sinha to cheque the trend. “If govt does not act, we volition beryllium forced to protest. This isn’t a insignificant issue,” Mirwaiz said.
Authorities person linked the caller liquor licences and shops to a spurt successful tourism since the 2019 abrogation of J&K’s peculiar presumption nether Article 370. In the lawsuit of Batmaloo, excise officials claimed the shop, present unopen aft the agitation, was not a caller 1 and had been lone relocated from different area.Despite specified opposition, J&K’s intoxicant income are connected the rise. The Omar-led govt’s economical survey earlier this twelvemonth estimated excise revenues astatine Rs 2,000 crore successful 2024-25, up 4% implicit the erstwhile year.Mirwaiz rejected the statement that liquor income were indispensable for tourism, pointing retired that J&K had welcomed visitors for centuries without promoting alcohol. “Has J&K go a tourer spot lone aft 2019 (Article 370 abrogation)? For hundreds of years, tourists person visited america but liquor was ne'er promoted connected this standard successful each locality,” Mirwaiz said.Drawing a examination with Gujarat, Mirwaiz stressed that intoxicant was banned determination owed to its interaction connected nine and asked wherefore akin concerns were not valid for J&K.
“Don’t we person a society? Don’t we person to unrecorded here, too,” Mirwaiz said.According to him, implicit 1 lakh radical successful J&K are already affected by cause addiction and govt’s fillip to intoxicant income volition lone aggravate the crisis.Some section Kashmiri Pandits led by an activist, Sandeep Mawa, had precocious demanded a prohibition connected liquor income successful the Valley. In March this year, PDP MLA Fayaz Ahmad Mir had introduced a backstage member’s measure seeking specified a prohibition crossed J&K. But the measure was not taken up for treatment oregon voting successful the assembly. BJP, too, has expressed enactment for the ban, with erstwhile J&K enactment main Ravinder Raina having led protests connected the contented earlier.
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