Suhail Bhat
SRINAGAR, Dec 23: Years’ long deadlock finally ended amicably after Muslim community here agreed to the relocation of a 40-year old Masjid to make way for a long awaited bridge over Jhelum in Srinagar.
The construction work on the bridge has been stalled since 2002 due to the presence of a Masjid and some residential and commercial structures. There has been disagreement between the administration and the managing committee over the amount of compensation for years.
After holding a series of meetings, the local administration was successful in ending the stalemate. The demolition of the mosque started after the signing an agreement between the Deputy Commission and the managing committee of Masjid Abu Turab at Qamarwari’s Rampora area on Saturday.
Jan Mohammad, Chairman of the Masjid, said that the decision was taken to provide relief to the people travelling through the Qamarwari Square. He said Qamarwari area is one of the most congested areas of Srinagar city and frequent traffic jams in the area have become a major source of inconvenience for the commuters. “The patients would face hardships in reaching the hospitals due to the heavy traffic jam on the existing bridge. These things motivated us to take the decision,” he said.
He hailed the Deputy Commissioner Srinagar, Shahid Iqbal Choudhary, for his efforts to end the stalemate. ” For the last nine years we were not reaching to any agreement as Government failed to negotiate with us. It is because of the present Deputy Commissioner that the issue has been settled. He called us and listened to our concerns,” he said.
After a discussion of over 3-hours, the Chairman of the Masjid Committee said, the Deputy Commissioner agreed to provide a compensation of around Rs 1.25 crores. “He also assured us help in documentation and other things. We were happy with his attitude. We are thankful to him,” he said.
Another residents, Abdul Samad Bhat, said that he was happy with the decision after assurances from the authorities. “We are happy as administration has assured us help in building a new Masjid. We are happy” he said.
The bridge is an important link as it connects the Old City, Soura, Hazratbal and Ganderbal areas with North-Kashmir, Qamarwari and Batamaloo.
An official statement said the agreement reached between the Government and the Masjid management includes among others an offer from the district administration to bear all costs of reconstruction of the Masjid and its completion within 12 months. He said that the plan has been finalized for relocation of other bottlenecks which include a Fire Station and 16-residential and commercial structures.
The Qamarwari Bridge is coming up near the popular “Cement Bridge” which was constructed in late 70’s and holds the distinction of being first concrete bridge in Srinagar. An additional bridge was sanctioned to reduce the traffic congestion in 2011. The work on the 127 metres long bridge which according to Roads & Buildings (R&B) Department costs 9.85 crore was started in June 2011.
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