Anti-liquor protests are gaining momentum in Srinagar, with traders from the city’s major commercial centre starting a three-day shutdown from Friday and staging protests against the opening of an alcohol shop in the area.
Kashmir’s chief cleric, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, has lent his support to the protests and warned of street demonstrations if the decision is not rolled back.
Traders of Batamaloo, a major commercial centre in Srinagar, said they decided to protest after authorities promised to seal the shop but took no action. The liquor shop was opened recently.
“Our area is littered with bottles in the morning, which is a painful sight for us. If liquor is banned in states like Gujarat, why not in Jammu and Kashmir, which is a Muslim-majority state? Lakhs of people visit the area every day. Do they come here to see all this?” a trader asked.
Consumption and sale of liquor is banned in Islam, and different sections of Kashmiris, including the Ulemas, have been calling for a ban on it. Both lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha’s administration and the Omar Abdullah government have refused to relent, although they have not taken a public stand in support of liquor.
Two legislators from the ruling National Conference and the Opposition Peoples Democratic Party submitted private member bills early this year seeking a ban.
Peer Imtiyaz-ul-Hassan, president of the Batamaloo Traders Association (BTA), said his area fell in a locality steeped in spiritual tradition, moral discipline and cultural dignity and opening a liquor shop there was shameful.
“Batamaloo is not a tourist hub, nor is it a space open to morally destructive ventures. The imposition of a liquor outlet in such a sensitive locality is deeply offensive, provocative and a grave violation of the collective conscience of its people.
“The attempt to implant such a vice in the heart of Batamaloo is deliberate provocation — a direct assault on our identity, aimed at disturbing peace and polluting young minds,” he said.
The association said any failure to act promptly might result in public unrest and mass resistance for which the administration would be held accountable.
The Mirwaiz separately told a large Friday gathering at Srinagar’s Jamia Masjid that the opening of a liquor shop was an assault “on our religious, cultural and societal ethos, and a complete disregard for it”.
“It is a deliberate attempt to ruin our people and our future generations. We are already grappling with the menace of drug addiction, and now the authorities are promoting liquor to further ruin the people and our societal and cultural fabric,” he said.
The Mirwaiz warned of street protests if the decision was not rolled back.
He said the authorities knew “fully well that J&K being a Muslim-majority state, the consumption of liquor is against the tenets of Islam and against the cultural and societal values and yet it is being promoted”.