india

Updated: Jul 19, 2019 10:15 IST

A government official on Thursday alleged that an ambulance carrying his father’s body was stopped for several hours because of restrictions along the Jammu-Srinagar highway in view of special arrangements made for vehicles carrying pilgrims for the Amarnath Yatra.

The father of Imtiyaz Wani, the director of state finance department, died of cancer at a hospital in Delhi and he was travelling back to Srinagar in the ambulance with the body when they were allegedly stopped near Nagrota.

Jammu and Kashmir Police spokesman Manoj Kumar said once the facts were ascertained, the ambulance was allowed to proceed. “This is total misrepresentation of facts,” he said.

In a Facebook post, Wani said life of a Kashmiri has become “subservient” to the yatra. “All civil rights are subordinate to Amarnath Yatra while moving from Jammu to Kashmir. I am not being allowed to carry forward my father’s dead body. What hell the life of a common Kashmiri is. Although I pleaded a lot but the security men did not listen. I told them that I was a government official and carrying dead body of my father but to no avail. They said the yatra has the priority,” he wrote.

On July 1, the state traffic department announced restrictions on the NH between Nashri and Qazigund in Ramban district for five hours daily.