New Delhi: To ease the lockdown in Kasmir Valley, all the postpaid services have been restored on Monday noon, in the Jammu and Kashmir region. It is a major relief for the citizens of Jammu and Kashmir.
However, internet services are yet to be resumed.
Shabnam Hashmi, a human rights activist, who has prepared a ground report on the mental health of people living in that region, said that this decision should have been taken by the Government much earlier.
"With total communication blockade, in case of emergency, people were not being able to get the adequate medical services," Shabnam said.
"The district hospitals have been told not to refer any cases to Srinagar. Patients from far-flung areas are not getting access to hospitals at all. ASHA workers are not being able to provide medicines to the people who need them due to lack of communication. So once the communication gets restored, then only we would be able to know about the number of casualties. There may be people who died because of not getting adequate medical services," she added.
Even the Jammu and Kashmir administration has expressed hope that the restoration of mobile services would help to achieve normalcy in the Valley.
After the modification of Article 370, mobile services were shut down in the Valley due to which people were not able to communicate with each other.
Many ground reports based on the situation of Valley suggested that people's health is getting affected by this decision and they are not able to get required medical services.
Shabnam said, "The uncertainty, not being able to communicate with anyone, it has impacted them very badly. Anxiety levels have gone up and we can know the exact number of cases only when the mobile services will get restored."
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