By IANS,
Srinagar : Jammu and Kashmir Governor N.N. Vohra Tuesday appealed for peace and normalcy in the state.
He called upon the people to maintain their age-old communal harmony at all costs.
Vohra expressed concern over the damages a mob caused Tuesday to the railway track at Hiranagar in the Kathua district of the Jammu region.
The governor said such acts were reprehensible and caused untold inconvenience to the travelling public besides enormous economic losses. He observed with anguish the continuing acts of violence, assault on public servants and targeting of governmental property.
Vohra expressed concern over the incidents Tuesday and stressed that violence and assault on public property would not yield any outcome for the agitating elements, as the losses were against public interest.
He urged the people to show restraint and collectively strive for heralding peace and normalcy.
On Tuesday, a dozen policemen were injured, a police post and government buildings were set ablaze and a railway track was uprooted in escalated violence here amid growing communal unrest in Jammu and Kashmir over allotment of land to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board and then its revocation.
At least 14 people have been killed in both regions, the Kashmir Valley and Jammu, of the state since May 26 when the government first ordered diversion of the forest land to the SASB for pilgrim facilities.
The order was revoked July 1 following 10-day long violent protests in the Muslim-dominated valley in June. The revocation ignited passions in Hindu-majority Jammu where some groups under the umbrella organisation of the Amarnath Yatra Sangarsh Samiti (AYSS) have been leading the protests for the restoration of the land to the shrine board.
The government says the land was meant for erecting “temporary and pre-fabricated” huts for pilgrims to the temple. But Muslims allege that it was meant for settling outsiders and changing the demography of the valley.