The carnival-like festivity that any Id generates in Kashmir is missing this time round. Just hundred days in power and the Mufti government has won both accolades and brickbats for bulldozing the landscape.Especially so along the two-km stretch from Galandhar to Joinery Mills, Pampore, hardly 15 kms from city, where the ruins of a recent demolition against ‘‘illegal’’ structures on both the sides of national highway have taken the shine off celebrations.Around 400 shops and 20 houses, including a baker’s 100-year-old chulha, lie destroyed. Kripa, a Pampore bread speciality on Id will not be travelling to Srinagar with the usual fanfare. The Monday visit of Minister for Urban Housing Ghulam Hassan Mir — the man behind these demolitions — to the affected areas of Pampore, Kandlabal and Awantipore is being seen as just another ‘survey’. ‘‘Yes, he (Mir) came here and heard our grievances. That’s all,’’ remarked an affected shopkeeper.Another heavyweight in Mufti Cabinet, Finance Minister Muzzafar Hussain Beigh, had visited another such area — the Hyderpora locality — immediately after a hundred ‘‘illegal’’ shops were razed to ground on the New Year’s day. Right now the affected, most of them shop keepers, are presently busy self-identifying alternative land which the government had promised them. Some private land opposite Ibrahim Masjid, Hyderpora, is presently occupied by the Custodian Evacuees Property.Nonetheless, the authorities have announced time-bound relief to help people tide over Id. Footpath vendors, selling Bangladeshi wares for past 14 years, are back on the spot with cots, wares and day-long haggling after being evicted over a month ago. That’s only till Id. In fact, the city-centre of Lal Chowk, Budshah Chowk, Pratap Park, Residency Road, Amira Kadal and HSH Street has turned ‘‘charpoy market’’ to defeat the very purpose with which Srinagar Municipality and Srinagar Development Authority had moved in their respective crushers.Business is on but for the affected, only as far as the socio-religious ‘‘compulsion’’ to celebrate Id goes. The streets are alive with a sea of humans but not with the same hustle-bustle as witnessed during the earlier Id (December 6), incidentally the first during the Mufti rule. The rush for an essentially meat-eating population is, however, undiminished at mutton and chicken outlets, where despite the market-checking squads doing rounds for past few days, mutton is selling at Rs 120 (against authorised Rs 110) and chicken at Rs 50-55 (against Rs 45).Bakery and confectionery shops are running out of stock so restaurants have extended counters to fulfill the demand. The city downtown is abuzz with activity but people here wait with a bated breath. ‘‘The crushers will move in once Id is over,’’ Bashir, a Darish Kadal resident, says with worry writ large over his face.
