Punjabi grooms face tough time tying knot with J&K girls

Arteev Sharma & Sanjay Pathak

Tribune Reporters

Jammu/Kathua, May 6

The ongoing lockdown to prevent the spread of deadly coronavirus is giving a tough time to grooms from Punjab to take their brides back from Jammu and Kashmir due to procedural difficulties at Lakhanpur — the gateway to the UT.

Many of them are made to wait for a complete day at Lakhanpur for want of “proper documents and movement passes” while others are ending up at quarantine centres.

In the process, many of them even miss ‘shubh muhurat’ (a fixed good time for doing something) for their weddings due to delay in getting permission at Lakhanpur. All of them are being screened and sampled at Lakhanpur prior to their entry into Jammu and Kashmir.

“We reached here (Lakhanpur) from Amritsar at 6 am and since then we have been waiting for permission for our onward movement to Jammu. The wedding was scheduled for morning hours but we remained stuck here. This is despite the fact that we had movement passes for four persons,” said Kanwardeep Singh, a groom from Amritsar.

Kanwardeep Singh had to change his groom dress after he waited for hours to get permission amid hot weather conditions.

On Wednesday, there were five grooms from Punjab who were made to wait at Lakhanpur for their entry into J&K. Lakhanpur was sealed for all inward and outward movement of people on March 23 to contain the spread of coronavirus. The movement of people is being facilitated through valid movement passes.

“Finally, I got permission for onward journey to Jammu in the evening. I reached here at 5.30 am. I hope I would not face more difficulties to bring my bride from Jammu,” said Rahul Kumar of Pathankot.