No salvation from Army for passengers at 11,500 feet

SONMARG, June 11: Hundreds of passengers were stranded on either side of Zojila for hours, with Army officials blocking the traffic on this ...

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SONMARG, June 11: Hundreds of passengers were stranded on either side of Zojila for hours, with Army officials blocking the traffic on this high-altitude road. The blockade wasn’t because of any security or safety reasons, but only so that a "convoy" of holidaying Army officials’ families could pass by smoothly.

There was no one to challenge the decision, and no wonder too. In this 201 km stretch from Ladakh to Srinagar, the Army has been regulating the traffic for years. Taxi drivers confirmed that the Army’s `whims’ were the rules of the road here, sometimes. And so there was precious little that the almost 1,000 Srinagar-bound passengers could do, stuck in a place 11,500 ft above sea level.

Hope came in the form of a personal security guard of a minister, who was also stuck in the traffic jam. The guard forced the Armymen to remove the blockade. But while the minister’s car was given the green signal, the choicest abuses were hurled at civilians who tried to get ahead.

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Passengers started gettingrestive, and adding to their agony was the wind, which made some of them sick. Most had started off from Kargil early in the morning and now it was nearing noon.

But deliverance finally came in the form of the much-awaited Army jeeps. Traffic was let off after that. When questioned by this correspondent, who was also stuck in the jam, a major said, "You see, some of our officers were supposed to come this way. So we couldn’t let you leave you before them."

This, passengers say, is just another regular affair.