It's a sight that would not have been seen in revolt-hit Indian Kashmir a couple of years ago, when sipping a whiskey could have meant a bullet in the head from hardline Islamic militants.
But as violence ebbs in the Muslim-majority state wracked by insurgency since 1989, Kashmiris are lining up in front of the two liquor shops open in the summer capital Srinagar.
“We’re doing really brisk business. People aren’t afraid any longer. They stop their cars near the shop and buy a bottle — or sometimes two,” said a salesman at one of the outlets.
PHOTO: AFP
The customers are from all strata of society even though it is traditionally forbidden for Muslims to consume alcohol, and the Koran labels intoxicants “the abominations of Satan’s handiwork.”
“I’m here to buy a bottle of whiskey,” businessman Abrar Ahmed said.
“A year ago I wouldn’t have been at this shop buying a bottle but now things are almost normal,” he said before speeding off in a four-wheel drive car on the avenue that skirts shimmering Dal Lake.
That’s not to say the threat of action by militants against people buying liquor has vanished all together.
But as calm slowly returns to Indian Kashmir against the backdrop of a four-year-old peace process between India and Pakistan aimed at settling the future of the disputed region, people are returning more openly to old lifestyles.
“Normalcy has lured me back to my old pastimes,” said a middle-aged, cultured Kashmiri man who did not wish his named to be used. “My friends and I like to get together to enjoy a drink once in a while and we can nowadays.”
The state government’s liquor statistics are a sign of the more relaxed attitude in Kashmir where at the peak of the militancy, thirsty drinkers would bring in alcohol from outside the state.
Liquor sales climbed to 414,000 bottles last year from 385,000 in 2006.
Beer sales grew even faster, jumping to 409,000 bottles last year from 165,000 bottles a year earlier.
All this marks a big change from nearly two decades ago when the insurgency erupted against New Delhi’s rule of the Himalayan region.
Liquor stores and cinemas became early targets of Islamist militants who forced their closure in Srinagar, Indian Kashmir’s urban hub of the revolt that has claimed at least 43,000 lives.
Srinagar hotelier Joginder Singh gave up in 1999 and converted his bar into a vegetarian restaurant. He now says tourists “come here to enjoy [the] region’s beauty and not liquor.”
Alcohol, however, has always been available at Srinagar’s five-star establishments and at a few guest houses where owners would produce a bottle from under a counter.
But now there are five privately-owned liquor shops in the scenic Kashmir Valley as the number of insurgency-related deaths has dropped to two a day from 10 at the height of the violence.
Traditionally, such shops were mostly run by non-Muslims, but after many of them fled the fighting, the new shops are operated mainly by Muslims.
“You have to be brave enough to run a liquor shop in Kashmir,” one Hindu worker at the shop said, vividly remembering militants targeting a liquor outlet three years ago in Srinagar and killing its owner.
Some hard drinkers even open bottles in front of the store and swig the tawny liquid in public.
“I know Islam forbids liquor but I don’t want anyone to force me to toe their line,” 35-year-old Farooq Ahmed said.
Many locals regard the shops as a curse.
“We’ve asked the authorities to close them,” said Imtiaz Ahmed, a middle-aged engineer. “It’s not good for the neighborhood — it’s bad for our youth.”
But the sellers are unmoved.
“We’re not forcing anyone to come to us. People come on their own,” said one salesman.
Kashmir’s main opposition National Conference and separatist alliance Hurriyat Conference have called for a liquor sale ban, but the government has decided to provide licenses for more outlets.
Authorities say they believe liquor shops will boost tourism in the snowcapped “Switzerland of the East,” as the region is known.
“It’s a shame that some Muslims in Kashmir use liquor,” cleric Ali Mohammed Wani said. “There aren’t that many but Allah will certainly punish them — or bring them back onto right path.”
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
Two daughters of an Argentine mountaineer who died on an icy peak 40 years ago have retrieved his backpack from the spot — finding camera film inside that allowed them a glimpse of some of his final experiences. Guillermo Vieiro was 44 when he died in 1985 — as did his climbing partner — while descending Argentina’s Tupungato lava dome, one of the highest peaks in the Americas. Last year, his backpack was spotted on a slope by mountaineer Gabriela Cavallaro, who examined it and contacted Vieiro’s daughters Guadalupe, 40, and Azul, 44. Last month, the three set out with four other guides
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line. The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photographs on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The post included a message thanking the “dear moms” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It
DISASTROUS VISIT: The talks in Saudi Arabia come after an altercation at the White House that led to the Ukrainian president leaving without signing a minerals deal Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was due to arrive in Saudi Arabia yesterday, a day ahead of crucial talks between Ukrainian and US officials on ending the war with Russia. Highly anticipated negotiations today on resolving the three-year conflict would see US and Ukrainian officials meet for the first time since Zelenskiy’s disastrous White House visit last month. Zelenskiy yesterday said that he would meet Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the nation’s de facto leader, after which his team “will stay for a meeting on Tuesday with the American team.” At the talks in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah, US
RSS