Karnah residents protest, demand construction of all-weather tunnel | KNO

Kashmir News Observer (KNO)

Karnah, July 09 (KNO): The residents of remote Karnah village in north Kashmir’s Kupwara district on Thursday held a protest demonstration against the administration for failing to construct an all-weather tunnel at Sadna Top. The residents told the news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO) that they have been demanding construction of an all-weather tunnel at Sadna Top from the last three decades. They said that despite assurances from the successive regimes from time to time nothing has been done on ground to redress their genuine grievance. The villagers said that during winters the road remains closed due to heavy snowfall and the village remains out of bounds from the rest of the Union Territory. “The road has also become a death trap as it has claimed many lives in the past one year due to narrow road width. We have been demanding construction of the tunnel for the last three decades but nobody is listening to our genuine concerns,” said Wali Mohammad Qureshi, a local resident. The villagers while holding placards and banners marched from Dak Bunglow Tangdhar to Tehsil office and later presented a manifesto to concerned tehsildar. Wali Mohammad said that in February this year a delegation of sarpanchs met the transport minister Nitin Gadkari and Jitendra Singh regarding the construction of the tunnel who assured that in a month’s time they will make an announcement regarding the same, however, till date nothing concrete has been done. “We are suffering in the absence of the tunnel and government must initiate concrete steps about our concerns and start the construction work at an earliest,” Qureshi said—(KNO)