Srinagar, June 30: A day after police used handcarts including wheelbarrows belonging to the Srinagar Municipal Corporation to fight stone pelting in the City centre, the civic body Wednesday asked the people not to damage the carts. 
 A SMC official said the corporation was running short of the handcarts adding that many of them had been damaged during the Amarnath land row in 2008.
 “At such a crucial juncture nobody should misuse the public property,” he said.
 The official, however, appreciated the use of the wheelbarrows by police.
 “Police told us that the stone pelting youth were using the carts, so we are thankful to them for protecting the public property by using it themselves,” he said.
 Meanwhile, even as the rest of the City lies under heaps of garbage, the SMC said civil lines areas like the Nishat road which leads to Mughal Gardens upto Airport road are being kept clean.
 A SMC spokesman said the sanitation drive is being monitored by the SMC commissioner, Sheikh Mushtaq and the Health Officer, Dr Reyaz Ahmed.
 Dr Reyaz said the civil lines areas being kept clean.
 But to a question that heaps of garbage are mounting in the rest of the City, particularly Shahr-e-Khaas, Dr Reyaz said given the security restrictions and apprehensions of stone pelting, the operations had been suspended there.
 “We appeal the people to give safe passage to our garbage lifting vehicles,” he said.

Lastupdate on : Wed, 30 Jun 2010 21:30:00 Mecca time
Lastupdate on : Wed, 30 Jun 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Thu, 1 Jul 2010 00:00:00 IST