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What TV doesn't, print can't; we deliver.
History was scripted when Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha on Sunday inaugurated multipurpose cinema halls in South Kashmir’s Pulwama and Shopian districts.
History was scripted when Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha on Sunday inaugurated multipurpose cinema halls in South Kashmir’s Pulwama and Shopian districts.
LG Sinha was accompanied by divisional commissioner Kashmir PK Pole, ADGP Kashmir zone police Vijay Kumar and several senior officers of police and civil administration.
“A historic day for J&K UT! Inaugurated Multipurpose Cinema Halls at Pulwama and Shopian. It offers facilities ranging from a movie screening, infotainment, and skilling of youth,” the office of LG J&K tweeted.
“We will build such multipurpose cinema halls in every district of Jammu and Kashmir soon. Today, I dedicate such cinema halls to the youth of Pulwama and Shopian,” Sinha told reporters.
Kashmir’s first INOX multiplex in Srinagar’s Somwar area will be thrown open to the public next week. It will have three movie theatres with a total capacity of 520 seats.
Asked if the government wanted to send out a message, Sinha said, “There is no message. This is an initiative taken by the Mission Youth under (secretary) Shahid Iqbal Choudhary.”
Soon after outbreak of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism in the early 1990s, the movie theatres were forced to close. First attempt to open cinema halls was made in 1999, when movie theatres – Neelam, Regal and Broadway – opened in Srinagar. However, terror attacks on cinemas led to their closing down across Kashmir.
Allah Tigers, a terrorist outfit, had first banned cinema halls and sale and consumption of liquor in 1989.
Before a spate of terror attacks in the 1990s, there were a total of 15 functional cinema halls in the Valley, of which nine were in Srinagar. The most famous cinemas were Broadway, Regal, Neelam, Palladium, Firdous, Shiraz, Khayam, Naaz, Shah in Srinagar, which screened Bollywood movies.
Today, most of the theatres are makeshift camps for security forces, while others have been turned into hotels, shopping complexes and even a hospital. But they live on in the memories of the people, who still remember the joy of going to the movies.
