Kashmir

Era of free service over, people would need to pay for water, electricity: LG

SRINAGAR — The Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor, Manoj Sinha Thursday said that the people need to realise that the era of free services in the country is over, and that they would need to pay for everything, be it water or power.

Sinha was speaking to India Today on the banks of Dal Lake when he also reiterated that the religious cleric and Hurriyat chief, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq is free to go wherever he wants and that there are no restrictions on his freedom.

However, Sinha said that if Mirwaiz’s security have a sense of threat, they won’t let him move as per the security protocol.

On Kashmiri Pandits, Sinha that if 50% of them don’t tell that these five years have been better for them compared to past, “I will leave the region.”

He said that his administration’s “biggest achievement was to end the local recruitment to militant ranks.”

Pakistan, he said, is troubled by this fact and now Pakistan is sending infiltrators to revive militancy in the Jammu region.