Passengers forced to walk 3km with luggage

SOPORE: Security forces have unleashed terror at Watlab on Sopore-Bandipore road for the past four days in the wake of a recent landmine explosion in which a securityman, Suresh Ku¬mar, was killed. People in general and the commuters and em¬ployees in particular are scared travelling on the route for fear of being belaboured by the personnel of 15 RR deployed at Watlab.

Eyewitnesses told Observer News Service the passengers are brought down from the buses and forced to walk over a distance of three kilometres on either side of Watlab. The Ban¬dipore-bound passengers are forced to disembark at Warpora and made to foot the distance upto Sangri top. Likewise, the Sopore-bound passengers have to come down at Watlab and walk three kilometres upto to Warpora.

Lending a sadistic touch to the torment, eyewitnesses al¬leged, the security forces force the passengers, both men and women, to carry their luggage over their head all through the 3-km ordeal.

They said many transporters were reluctant to ply their ve¬hicles of the route compouding the people's problems further.

Reports said the hospital authorities here referred a villag¬er of Botengoo to Srinagar after his condition deteriorated fol¬lowing several dog bites. He had been beaten by the security forces at the Watlab camp after which dogs were set at him. He was brought to the sub district hospital where doctors re¬ferred him to Srinagar with multiple dog bites.

(Kashmir Observer, October 30, 2000)