By IANS
Jammu : The strategic Jammu-Srinagar national highway remained closed for the third consecutive day Wednesday pushing into grave misery hundreds of stranded passengers here.
The passengers – mostly Kashmiris – were huddled together trying to ward off the cold on the cemented floor of a bus stand in this winter capital of Jammu and Kashmir, waiting anxiously for the re-opening of the road.
They have no money to rent a room in a hotel. The only shelter over their heads is the leaking roof of the bus stand, the starting point for their journey to the valley.
And with the weather continuing to be inclement and the highway closed due to heavy snowfall and landslides, there are no immediate hopes to bring them relief.
These Kashmiris had come down to Jammu for various reasons – to get their work done in the government offices, meet ministers and bureaucrats. All government offices are moved from the summer capital Srinagar to Jammu.
Some of them had come for job interviews. A large number of them had returned from Delhi, Bangalore and Kolkotta and other parts of India where they had gone to sell Kashmiri shawls and handicraft artefacts.
“Now I am stuck up here,” said Ghulam Rasool, in his sixties, who had come here to meet a senior politician from his home district of Kulgam.
“The politician was off to Delhi. Neither could I meet him nor do I have the money to rent a room in any hotel.”
Hoteliers have raised the tariff by several times. A low class hotel, which would normally offer a room for Rs.300 or so, now asks for Rs.1,000 plus.
“This is a loot,” Abdul Ahad, another stranded passenger told IANS. “But there is no one to listen to us.”
None from the government has visited them. “We are waiting for someone to come, but no one has visited us so far,” Ahad said.
General Bus Stand, Jammu, from where more than 400 buses leave for various destinations in the state and outside of it, has been converted into a big waiting hall, with stranded passengers spread all over.
The smoke of cigarettes fills the air, as they smoke heavily to kill the time.
Each waiting passenger has the same question for the other. “Did you hear anything about the opening of the road?”
Then a whole lot of curses start on the organizations managing the 294-km-long highway, the only operational road link the valley has with the rest of the country.
Heavy snowfall at Jawahar Tunnel, 190 km north of Jammu, and at Patnitop has made the road unworthy for traffic.
The snowfall has also spelt danger of avalanches, and officials have asked security, police and other government personnel posted near Jawahar Tunnel to take shelter within it to save themselves.
A police official said, “No one is stranded on the highway.”
The passengers “will be allowed (to travel) only after the road is cleared of the boulders and snow”, the official said.