KL Report
SRINAGAR
Holding Government of India directly responsible for the slow death of Cross-LoC Trade, Salamabad Chakuti Traders Union (SCTU) Saturday said that it would bring LoC trade to grinding halt from September 3. They said that LoC trade is breathing its last due to callous approach of New Delhi.
Addressing a press conference in Srinagar, SCTU said that authorities are treating the traders as smugglers and rather than facilitating trade they are acting as impediments.
“Most of the traders are barred from the trade for the illogical reasons. They are being told that their relatives were involved in militancy related incidents. This is the repeat of infamous ‘Passport policy’ which has been great embarrassment for India,” the Union leaders said.
The traders said that at the beginning of the trade, there were about more than 600 traders involved, but gradually the number came down and today it is less than 50 traders. But now customers acting as Trade Facilitation Centre gave their own diktat that in the trade only Pakistan administered Kashmir products can arrive and not the products from the main parts of Pakistan.
“This in a way tantamount to giving PaK a status of separate country and negating India’s stand on it. This weird order and other discouraging steps have left trade dead with only two to three non lucrative tradable items,” the Union said.
The Union said that any damage lent to cross LoC trade would mean fatal blow to the overall Confidence Building Measure (CBM) and shattering of hopes of already tension hit youth of Kahsmir which can have grave repercussions.
