Eid eve shopping continues in Kashmir despite rain, cold

Srinagar, March 19 (IANS) Eid eve shopping continued across Kashmir on Thursday despite incessant rain and cold temperature. 

People carrying bags full of bakery, grocery, mutton, chicken and other essentials of life were seen braving the rain and cold to prepare for the Eid-ul-Fitr festival.

Makeshift stalls of bakery have come up both in old city and uptown Srinagar as buyers haggle with sellers over prices of goods. For a change, people are again buying warm clothes as heavy snowfall has occurred in the mountains bringing in chill into the Valley.

Most sought after on Eid eve are the bakery, mutton, poultry, vegetable and grocery goods. Mutton sellers have hiked the price of a kilogram of mutton to Rs 750 with some reports saying that many butchers were seen selling mutton at Rs 800 per kilogram.

Long queues of people waiting for their turn to buy LPG cylinders were seen in Srinagar city and every other district headquarter of the Valley.

While the administration has warned LPG sellers to ensure that the consumers are not put to trouble by creating artificial shortage of the cooking gas, people alleged that many unscrupulous LPG outlets were harassing consumers on the pretext of short supply.

With every household in J&K now using LPG for preparing food, the focus on Eid eve remained on whether a household had enough cooking gas for the festival or not.

Thankfully, petrol and diesel outlets were supplying fuel to vehicle owners freely.

The administration has moved out market checking squads to ensure that the prices of essentials of life remain under control, but given the impatience of the Eid eve shoppers, prices seem to be of little consequence as long as one is able to buy goods to celebrate the festival.

Eid-ul-Fitr is celebrated after the holy fasting month of Ramadan and Eid prayers are basically thanksgiving prayers by the devout to express joy and satisfaction after completing the Ramadan fast successfully.

Depending on the sighting of the moon, Eid would be celebrated in J&K tomorrow or the day after.

--IANS

sq/rad