Make J&K dry like Gujarat: Hurriyat leader Mirwaiz
Mirwaiz Umar Farooq
called Friday for J&K to be made a 'dry state like Gujarat' as he opposed authorities' move to open more liquor shops, claiming such steps were 'a deliberate attempt to push our youths further into addiction'.
'J&K is a Muslim-majority region and sale and consumption of liquor is against Islam's tenets,' Mirwaiz said during Friday prayers at Srinagar's Jamia Masjid. The trigger was a protest the previous day by locals in Srinagar's Batmaloo against the opening of a liquor shop in the area that had not seen such outlets for decades.
'If Gujarat can be declared a dry state, there is no reason why J&K should be exempted,' Mirwaiz said.
This was the first call to protest in recent months on any issue from Mirwaiz, who is also chief cleric of Kashmir and has been put in home detention ahead of Friday prayers on many occasions in the past few months.
Mirwaiz urged the state's Omar Abdullah-led National Conference govt and lieutenant-governor Manoj Sinha to check the trend. 'If govt does not act, we will be forced to protest. This isn't a minor issue,' Mirwaiz said.
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Authorities have linked the new liquor licences and shops to a spurt in tourism since the 2019 abrogation of J&K's special status under Article 370. In the case of Batmaloo, excise officials claimed the shop, now shut after the agitation, was not a new one and had been only relocated from another area.
Despite such opposition, J&K's alcohol sales are on the rise. The Omar-led govt's economic survey earlier this year estimated excise revenues at Rs 2,000 crore in 2024-25, up 4% over the previous year.
Mirwaiz rejected the argument that liquor sales were necessary for tourism, pointing out that J&K had welcomed visitors for centuries without promoting alcohol. 'Has J&K become a tourist spot only after 2019 (Article 370 abrogation)? For hundreds of years, tourists have visited us but liquor was never promoted on this scale in every locality,' Mirwaiz said.
Drawing a comparison with Gujarat, Mirwaiz stressed that alcohol was banned there due to its impact on society and asked why similar concerns were not valid for J&K.
'Don't we have a society? Don't we have to live here, too,' Mirwaiz said.
According to him, over 1 lakh people in J&K are already affected by drug addiction and govt's fillip to alcohol sales will only aggravate the crisis.
Some local Kashmiri Pandits led by an activist, Sandeep Mawa, had recently demanded a ban on liquor sales in the Valley. In March this year, PDP MLA Fayaz Ahmad Mir had introduced a private member's bill seeking such a ban across J&K. But the bill was not taken up for discussion or voting in the assembly. BJP, too, has expressed support for the ban, with former J&K party chief Ravinder Raina having led protests on the issue earlier.
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