IN PICS: JK seeks IAF to rescue stranded passengers

The Jammu and Kashmir government has decided to utilise the services of the Air Force to lift hundreds of stranded passengers as the Jammu-Srinagar national highway continued to remain closed for the passenger traffic for past nearly 10 days.

Though the Border Roads Organisation which maintains the 300-km long highway cleared it three days ago, only trucks carrying essential supplies were allowed to move to Srinagar.

...

The fresh snowfall in past two days again led to closure of the highway. The BRO has pressed 20 snow cutters and clearance machines and its men to clear the highway on war footing basis.

"We have again opened the highway for one-way-traffic and 200 trucks crossed the Jawahar tunnel this evening into the Valley," chief engineer Beacon Brigadier T P S Rawat told this correspondent.

Click NEXT to read further...

The continued closure of the road for passenger traffic has led to hundreds of valley-bound passengers getting stranded at Jammu.

Similarly, tourists who were in valley also got stranded. The state government has requested the hotel owners to offer special concessions for the stranded tourists.

...

The government on Friday made arrangements to provide cooked food, drinking water to the drivers and passengers stranded at various points on the highway in Udhampur district of Jammu region.

The stranded passengers have been protesting in Jammu which has now prompted the state government to request the air force for help in airlifting the stranded passengers.

...

The stranded passengers registered themselves today in the two capitals, Srinagar and Jammu for the purpose.

A defence spokesman here said 1,000 LPG cylinders were handed over to the civil authorities for distribution as the valley is facing acute shortage of cooking gas.

...