STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: Taking serious note of losses incurred by the business community of entire State and colossal loss of life and property in the Valley due to prevailing unrest, Chamber for Commerce and Industry (CCI) on Wednesday invited Civil Society members from Kashmir to hold intra-region dialogue with their counterparts from Jammu and Ladakh besides calling on Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti jointly and urging her to consider the demands of the people of Kashmir to assuage their problems ensuring early restoration of normalcy in Valley.
The Chamber also decided to go for Jammu Bandh on 20th August in case Kashmiri people deny holding talks on restoring peace.
The issue came to fore in a meeting of CCI constituents held under the leadership of CCI President Rakesh Gupta, held to discuss the grave situation in Kashmir Valley for the last so many days, resulting into law and order problem.
At the outset, the deaths of the civilians and the security personnel were condoled and the anti nationals were blamed for the loss of human lives.
The Chamber President Rakesh Gupta explained to the heads of various associations from Trade, Industry, Tourism and Transport that the current situation in Kashmir has pushed J&K backward by decades. He also said that many prominent people from the civil society in Kashmir have approached CCI Jammu to intervene and break the deadlock to restore normalcy.
After consulting all business, industry and transport representatives it was unanimously decided to give a deadline to the people of Kashmir for intra-region discussions with the people of Jammu and Ladakh as they do not support the way of protests chosen by Kashmiris which was leading the people towards the path of self destruction and not self determination.
Rakesh Gupta conveyed to the people of Kashmir that if by Friday, 1:00 PM the Jammu Chamber does not get a positive message from representatives of Kashmir Civil Society for intra region dialogue followed by a joint delegation of representatives from three regions of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh to call on Mehbooba with a charter of demands; if any for consideration and necessary action as the Chamber have full faith in democratically elected Chief Minister, the Jammu Chamber shall be left with no option but to call for a Jammu Bandh on 20th August in support of peace, communal harmony and against the agenda of the anti national elements. The President Chamber appealed for communal harmony and brotherhood.
Sham Lal Langer, Senior Vice President CCI, Deepak Aggarwal, Junior Vice President CCI, Arun Gupta, Secretary General CCI, Ashu Gupta, Treasurer CCI. The Presidents and Secretaries of all Bazars, Trades, Industries, Tourism and Transport Associations were also present in the meeting.
