Concluding his three-day sit-in for seeking a tunnel for Karnah and Gurez, in a first of its kind, AIP President and PUF leader Er. Rasheed on Thursday visited the civil secretariat barefooted from the site of the sit-in to Chief Secretary’s office to express solidarity with the people of Karnah and Gurez and protest against silence of the government over the issue.
“The government will have to do justice with the people of Karnah and Gurez, who are living a miserable life for the want of proper road connectivity? Thanking all those people hailing from different walks of life, who joined the sit-in and expressed their solidarity with the programme,” Er Rasheed said while talking to media persons on the conclusion of the sit-in.
Er. Rasheed said that the three-day sit-in must be a wakeup call for the state and central government and steps should be taken to ensure that work on these two prestigious tunnels starts at an earliest, so that precious lives, time and energy is saved.
“People of Karnah and Gurez do not need cross border shelling, neither has the government of India and Pakistan have any moral authority to make these places battlefields and still deprive the innocent but brave citizens of these places from getting basic amenities,” he said.
After concluding the sit-in Er. Rasheed along with Sheikh Gh. Nabi, retired District and Sessions Judge from Karnah on behalf of civil society Karnah walked in the civil secretariat to submit the memorandum to the government.
Er. Rasheed said that walking barefooted to civil secretariat is just a message not for the government but the common masses too not to underestimate the sufferings of people of border areas and we all must treat them too as humans.
“While in most of the cities and townspeople have got macadamized roads but isn’t it shameful that in Karnah and Gurez it takes sometimes even a week to reach dead body his home,” Rasheed said.
Er. Rasheed submitted a memorandum to the government through Chief Secretary urging Union and State governments to take up the construction work for Karnah and Gurez tunnels in hand at an earliest possible time.
Rasheed further said that he will be writing to Union surface transport minister Nitin Gadkari over the issue.
“If the government fails to respond positively, we will knock the power corridors in Delhi by peaceful sit-in and other means,” he said.