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Srinagar: For the second time in less than a month, Hyderabad-based Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Limited (MEIL) has urged the Jammu and Kashmir administration to impose prohibitory orders at the Ratle power project site in Kishtwar, citing the “safety of workers” and “public order concerns”.

The development took place a day after Sanjay Parihar (Parihar), a senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) activist linked to the Leader of the Opposition in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly, Sunil Sharma, and the saffron party’s Kishtwar legislator Shagun Parihar, threatened to halt the construction of the Ratle project in the presence of a senior government officer on Thursday.

Reacting to the development, the ruling National Conference and the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) accused the Kishtwar district administration of failing to “uphold the public interest” and “selective inaction” against the “BJP leaders and workers” who were allegedly disrupting the project.

Deputy Commissioner Kishtwar Pankaj Kumar Sharma could not be reached for comment despite repeated attempts. This story will be updated when a response is received.

In a letter to Sharma on Saturday (January 9), the MEIL’s Ratle project chief Harpal Singh, without naming Parihar, alleged that a group of “outsiders” have been staging “unlawful protests” at the project site in Kishtwar’s Drabshalla since last month.

Also read: J&K: Megha Engineering Blames Local BJP MLA for Stalling Ratle Power Project Work

Parihar, a former sarpanch whose family has bagged contracts worth millions of rupees despite not losing land in the project, as reported by The Wire, was blacklisted by the MEIL last year after he failed to execute a contract.

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