The daily appearance of posters asking people what to wear and not to use mobiles or watch TV, the apple-rich town of Sopore in north Kashmir seems to be getting into the militancy vortex once again reminding the days of 1990. The Taliban-like posters have been warning people to desist from these usages or face severe punishment comes very close to the recent diktat on asking people to remove mobile towers from their precincts and mobile operators coming under militant attacks thus stalling the services for three days and some of them even closed their operations. The services were restored after the Union govt spoke tough to the state govt. The situation locals feel is going to worsen. The diktat has created a new set of problems for locals as migrant workers from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh are leaving in drove .The situation seems to worsen with factionalism coming in the open even in militants rank like Hizbul Mujahedeen. The Tuesday killing of Health Department employee an aide of Hurriyat leader Ali Shah Geelani is the reflection of this infighting. Though, separatist leader was quick in issuing statement blaming Indian security agencies for the killing. Of recently Sopore and its nearby areas have become safe havens for terrorists owing allegiance to Hizbul Mujahedeen and Lashkar-e-Taiba. This area because of its richness and large sympathizers population has been categorized as ‘terrorist infested’. What fears haunting of people would be the revival of militancy which could become difficult for even Mufti Mohammad Govt which has been trying to project Kashmir as health destination along with seeing investment meet a la Davos style and inviting Bollywood to do film shooting. Irony is that most of the cinema theaters in Valley today are closed under militant threat.
