Jammu, December 20
Weeks before the Indian and Pakistani teams started their deliberations on the pattern that should be adopted for facilitating travel on the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad
road, after it was thrown open, the number of passport seekers in Jammu and Srinagar offices has increased in
geometrical progression.
Passport officials confirmed that between 20 and 50 applications are received per day from the passport seekers. They said “We have not been in a position to issue the passports under the Tatkal scheme providing for the issuance of passport within a fortnight because of the rush.”
Sources said hopes for the reopening of the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road had gone high after a team of experts from Delhi visited Baramulla and Uri for assessing the requirement that had to be fulfilled for setting up various offices at the border point last month.
This was followed by a Pakistani team that had a detailed discussion in Delhi 11 days ago. However, these hopes have been belied following the deadlock over the travel documents that were needed for travellers from both sides of the border.
While Pakistan insisted on accepting a state subject certificate as a valid travel document the Indian side favoured passport and visa system for the travel.
This development has caused dismay among a large number of people in Jammu and Kashmir who had either kept their passports ready or were in the process of receiving them.
Sheikh Qayoom an officer in a public sector corporation said “dismay is writ large on the faces of those who had believed that the veil of mistrust and hatred between India and Pakistan would be removed with the reopening of the road for traffic.”
He said those who had been consistent in saying that the “walls of hatred between the two countries will not fall have not been dismayed by the deadlock on the reopening of the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad route.”
In the Jammu region a large number of
people, including politicians, had hoped that the Suchetgarh-Sialkot road too will be reopened after the opening of the Srinagar Muzaffarabad
road. This category of people too has been dismayed over the deadlock on the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road.
A senior police officer said, “treating state subject certificates as valid travel documents was fraught with serious consequences because a number of militants are in possession of state subject certificates.”
He said “If Delhi had agreed to the Pakistani proposal it could open floodgates for militants on either side of the border.”
Dr Hari Om vice-president of the state unit of the BJP said, “Since the revenue authorities have the powers to issue state subject certificates what
guarantee we have that they do not issue such certificates to militants.”
He said “Pakistan’s insistence that only those having state subject certificates could use the Uri road has been rightly rejected by India .” He said if the state subject certificates are made valid travel documents it meant that those living in Gilgit and Baltistan cannot travel on Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road when these areas had been part of undivided Jammu and Kashmir.
He said as part of the Pakistan state subject certificates are not issued to people in the Gilgit, Baltistan and Hunza areas.
Feroz Din of
Rajouri, whose uncles had migrated to the occupied Kashmir long back, said
“India and Pakistan should not try to gain political mileage from the pattern of travel documents needed for using the Uri-Muzaffarabad road.”
