Kashmir valley restaurants’ sales plunge after seizure of 13,000-kg meat

Following the confiscation of nearly 13,000 kilograms of meat and related products during enforcement drives this month, Kashmir’s restaurant and eatery business has come to a virtual standstill. Sales have plunged and customers are staying away amid widespread fear and panic.

Most of the seizures were carried out in the Valley, where officials discovered large quantities of rotten mutton, chicken and other meat items, many of them without proper labelling, sourcing details or packaging information.

The revelations have sparked alarm and disrupted business for many local eateries and restaurants.

Aqib Nazir Batoo, who runs a café in Srinagar’s famous Khayam area, known for its cluster of food outlets, told The Tribune that his sales had collapsed. “We hardly see people coming now. The area used to be full of visitors, but the number has gone drastically down,” he said.

He added that only his most loyal customers continued to visit. “We had a lot of daily customers who would come to this area. Since the reports of seizure spread, there is no trust and people have stopped visiting.”

The decline has forced café owners to cut staff. “When there are no sales, how would I give salary to my employees? Out of my five employees, I have had to let two go until things improve.”

According to Batoo, a café owner making sales worth Rs 1 lakh a day is now reduced to just Rs 10,000. The slump has also hit hundreds of food stalls on Valley streets, particularly those selling barbeques and other meat-based dishes.

Nazir Ahmad, who sells barbeques near Dal Lake, said customers were now shunning them. “If one person has made a mistake, everyone in Kashmir has been linked to the problems. We are suffering unnecessarily,” he said.

Kashmir Hotels and Restaurants Owners Association president Gowhar Maqbool said the lack of clarity from the authorities had deepened the crisis. “There is no trust among the public and the business has come to a standstill,” he said.

“Authorities haven’t cleared the picture of who is responsible. By keeping the chapter open, everyone is suffering. If the authorities had made public about those who were responsible, the situation would have been different today. But right now, everyone is sailing in the same boat.”

Maqbool said that while 1,200 hotels and restaurants were registered with the association, the actual number of establishments ran into thousands. He added that the association had only one demand: “The entire matter should be investigated and the guilty booked and jailed.”