Outraged at the failure of the district administration and Public Health Engineering department to provide them with the clean drinking water, residents of Daril Tarthpora in Kupwara district took the streets on Monday and staged a protest against what they termed as “lackadaisical attitude” of the authorities.
Protesters, including men, women and elderly persons, alleged that they have been forced to drink the contaminated water for the past five months.
“We have hit the streets on many occasions during the recent months but authorities have turned a deaf ear towards our sufferings,” they added.
“Due to negligence of administration we are forced to consume contaminated water, we have raised the issue with DDC Kupwara and PHE authorities but they have just ignored our pleas,” said Ghulam Muhammad a local.
They said that their women folk face lot of hardships in fetching water from different spots. Whenever it rains many families remain without a single drop of drinking water.
A student among the protesters said that they fetch water from a well about two kilometers away from their mohalla.
Protesters said that about six months ago a water supply scheme was started in the area but was abandoned before its completion.
We request Governor (Satya Pal Malik) to intervene and direct the concerned authorities to mitigate their sufferings, the protesters said.