By IRNA,
Srinagar, India : Kashmir Traders Federation (KTF), a body of local traders, Thursday said that despite suffering massive loses due to continued series of strikes and curfews, traders would continue their support to the separatist programmes.
KTF, which recently split in to two factions, is aghast at the killing of innocent Kashmiri youth.
One faction led by Muhammad Sadiq Bakal voiced unequivocal support to the separatist agitation, while the one led by Jan Muhammad Koul, has a more nuanced approach, wishing for a specific programme for the community which, he says loses Rs 45 crore ($ 1 million ) for every day of strike and curfew and is deeply in debt to the banks.
Bakal says that the traders’ community deemed the repeated killings of Kashmiri youth as intolerable, and that the central and the state governments should initiate concrete talks to improve law and order in the state, and rope in the separatists as well.
Asking the prime minister to intervene personally to resolve the Kashmir issue and stop the bloodshed in Kashmir, Bakal wants the civil society in India to mount pressure on the government and the country’s intelligentsia to support Kashmiris for “concerted efforts” to settle the long-pending Kashmir issue permanently.
Bakal wants the AFSPA revoked, troops withdrawn, and detainees released as the first stage in a “direct effort” to resolve the issue.
When asked whether his federation would follow the current programme by separatists, Bakal says that anyone who thought that traders would return to work forgetting the youth who had been killed was highly mistaken.
His counterpart from another faction of the federation, Jan Muhammad Koul, says that situation in Kashmir is alarming and that Kashmiri youth were being put to the sword, sparking anger and grief in every native heart.
“Youth are our asset, and they are being snatched from us,” said.
“Repeated curfew and strikes puts the traders to immense losses, and the community is indebted to the banks, and it has to repay its loans ” he says.
“While strikes effect business, curfews too have a disastrous impact,” he says.
He, however, says that the prorgramme announced by the separatists would be implemented to the full.
“The traders’ community is neck deep in debt, and losses Rs 45 crore daily for every day of curfew or strike,” he says.
“Our difficulties would be largely ameliorated if a clear-cut and specific programme were to be announced for traders. This would also be a relief to the masses,” he said.