Srinagar: While the whole country is embroiled in politics and turmoil due to the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes, Kashmir is living in a peaceful state far from the panic as the people calmly accepted the move.
The continuous disputes and disturbance in the valley saved it from the demonetisation woes as explained by Elizabeth Maryam, an economics teacher at the Kashmir University.
"No common Kashmiri keeps large amounts of cash at home because of the disturbed situation," she said.
She further told that the salaried class gets monthly wages through bank accounts and they usually space withdrawals to suit daily needs and the skilled and unskilled workers spend most of the amount they earn.
As far as big industrialists and businessmen are concerned, they hardly keep huge amounts of cash at home in a conflict area like Kashmir.
"That is the reason why the demonetisation has little impact in Kashmir," Maryam said.
Nazir Qazi, am an officer of the local Jammu and Kashmir Bank told that all the ATMs of the bank are fully stocked and no rush was observed in these days.
"For the last eight days, there has been no rush on either our branches or at our ATM outlets. Yes, people have been coming in for the exchange of the demonetised currency notes or for deposit, but nobody was being hassled," he said.
Several casualties have been reported in parts of the countries since the Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a ban on the currency notes of 500 and 1000 on November 8. Fortunately, the grief-stricken Kashmir escaped from the situation.
Muzaffar Ahmad, a college principal, said: "In a place where the protest shutdown has paralysed life for over four months, who would shoot up their blood pressure further over cash crunch?"
However, people directly refuted the Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar's claims of reduced stone peltings or militancy in the valley.
"The Defence Minister has said stone pelting ended because of demonetisation. That is something nobody can accept in Kashmir," said Zahoor Ahmad, 55, a local contractor
"Do you want us to believe that a youth is ready to be killed with a bullet or be blinded with a pellet because the separatists give him a 500 rupees note? That is absurd," he said.
On the other side, Intelligence officials believe that using fake currency notes is part of the ongoing militancy and doing the same with the new currency notes would not take long.
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