Residents of Indian-held Kashmir, the country’s only state with a Muslim majority, are drinking more alcohol, excise officials said, after years of intimidation by Islamic militants.Liquor shops, beauty parlours and cinemas were closed in the Indian-held Kashmir (IHK) after a Muslim separatist revolt against Indian rule broke out in 1989, and conservative Islamic ideas were propagated by armed militant groups. But as violence has decreased since India and Pakistan began a peace process in 2004 over the disputed territory, liquor traders are back in business. Half a dozen liquor shops have reopened across IHK. “More than 1.2 million bottles of Indian-made foreign liquor and beer were sold in the Kashmir Valley in the past one year, which is of course the highest quantity since the militancy began,” said an Excise Department official. Only 414,000 bottles were sold the year before that, he said.
The department is processing dozens of applications for licences to open more liquor shops, he added.