Kupwara village protests shortage of drinking water

Residents of Yaroo village in this northern Kashmir district staged a protest demonstration Friday against shortage of drinking water supply to their area.

The protesting residents including men, women and childrenblocked the road, connecting Handwara with Baramulla, shouting slogans againstPublic Health Engineering (PHE) department for failing to provide them withregular water supply.

   

Owing to the protests the traffic movement remaineddisrupted for more than an hour. “For the past few weeks we are facing acuteshortage of water, but the officials are not paying any attention to oursuffering,” said a protestor. “Despite repeated requests to the authoritiesconcerned, we are being forced to use contaminated water from streams.”

Mahjabeen, another local resident said nobody from thedepartment has bothered to visit their area to address their problem.

She said at a time when the temperature was rising inKashmir the villagers are forced to walk miles to fetch water from wells.

“We are suffering immensely,” said Mahjabeen. “Our area iswithout water supply for weeks now and we are forced to hit roads. We live inthe area where tube wells have also gone dry. We have apprised the authoritiesconcerned several times but the water supply isn’t been restored,” said anotherprotester.

As the protests intensified a police party from Langatepolice station reached the spot and assured locals of taking up their matterwith authorities concerned.

Though the protestors dispersed following the assurancesthey threatened to hit the roads again if their demand wasn’t met.

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