Labourers Leave Kashmir ‘Empty-Handed’ as Article 370 Abrogated

Some labourers said that they are heading back home as a curfew has been imposed

(Photo: The Quint)

Amid a clampdown on communication and heavy patrolling in Jammu and Kashmir after the effective revocation of Article 370 and 35A, workers from other states who were employed in the Valley want to return home as the situation in Kashmir turns bleak.

Some labourers told The Quint that they are heading back home as a curfew has been imposed.

“We work as labourers and don’t understand all this,” Mohammad Israfil, a labourer from Bihar said.

“There is ruckus everywhere, a curfew has been imposed... We are going back,” he added.

Anwar Ansari, another labourer from Bihar said, “We are returning to Bihar because they are troubling us. They are asking is to vacate.”

Another labourer from Bihar, Imran, said that like they do every year, this year too they went to Kashmir to work. “The situation is such that after people heard of Article 370, they have been asking us to leave,” Imran said.

Due to lack of phone and Internet connectivity, the labourers said that they could not talk to their families back home. “We are just running around.”

Around 4 lakh people travel to Kashmir every year in search of a livelihood.

The Parliament, on Tuesday, 6 August, effectively revoked the special status which had been conferred upon Jammu and Kashmir and bifurcated the state into two Union Territories: Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.