Protesting Horsemen
The protesting horsemen (Ponywallas) of Gulmarg became stopping stone for thousands of tourists to visit this health resort as they demanded that no tourist vehicle should be allowed to go beyond Batpathri. However, timely intervention of Ghulam Hassan Mir, Minister for Agriculture, and the promise of bureaucrats of meeting them next week stopped the situation fom getting worse.
The Ponywallas threatened of a massive agitation if government fails to address their demands after meeting them. Pertinently, Batpathri was thrown open by the state government recently for tourist activities after nearly two decades.
“Batpathri is an 11 Km stretch, how can we not allow Vehicles to carry tourist there. If someone wants to ride the horse, we have no objection,” Director Tourism, Talat said.
The Ponywallas said they were already rendered jobless by the gondola services at Gulmarg. “Either government should suspend the traffic from Gulmarg to Botapthri or suspend the service of 1st phase Gondola, or else we should be given other alternatives sources of job,” Ponywalas said.
More than 3500 members of ponywallas, traders and labourers are providing services to tourists from last 15 years. Meanwhile tourism stake holders have condemned the ponywalla’s strike and have demanded strict action against the violators.
Tourism department has decided to cancel the registrations of various Ponywallas at the tourist resort Gulmarg after they blocked the traffic movement on Gulmarg road and also resorted to stone pelting.
“We will identify people in a couple of days before we cancel their registrations who were involved in the mess,” asserted the Director, adding that instructions have been passed on to the officer in charge at Gulmarg to lodge an FIR against the persons who attacked the departmental vehicle on Friday.
Terming protest of ponywallas as ‘high-handedness’ the Travel Agents Association said Ponywallas were a big threat to the tourism.
Labour UNREST
Twenty people were injured and five vehicles were damaged in the clashes between labourers and cops near the project site of road tunnel between Chenani to Nashri. The clashes broke out after some labourers were disengaged for unknown reasons.
The construction labourers contacted the management of their company, Leighton Construction Company, and tried to convince them to revoke the disengagement orders. Seeing no positive response from management they in huge numbers gathered on the Highway near Chenani and blocked the vehicular traffic for about half an hour, reports said. During protest, the agitated labourers entered into a scuffle with the officials of the company and also damaged four vehicles including a mini-bus and a car.
This company management called the police at the project site. A large number of police and CRPF personnel rushed to the project site. The forces resorted to lathi-charge and tear gas shelling to disperse the agitating labourers.
The clashes turned violent and the labourers resorted to stone pelting.
Reports say that in these clashes five labours, eight State Police personnel and seven CRPF jawans received injuries and in the process one police vehicle was also damaged.
After several hours of pitched battles peace was restored in the area. Later, police and civil officials arranged a meeting between leaders of the labours and the company management to resolve the issue. “Some of the labours, who were ready to perform their routine job, were stopped by other labours by involving union leaders namely Arshad Ahmed, Abdul Rashid and Mahesh Singh and they tried to forcibly enter the premises of ‘Leighton company’ near the tunnel with evil intentions,” SSP Udhampur, Ashkoor Wani said.
A case under Sections 307, 147, 148, 332, 427 and 341 RPC has been registered in Police Station Chenani.
