Kashmir’s young e-entrepreneurs live in constant fear of closure

Shahana Butt
Press TV, Indian-controlled Kashmir

A trio of brothers in Kashmir has teamed up for the first-ever online grocery in Kashmir, Grofrills. Haseeb khan studied business management, Ammar Khan is a mechanical engineer and Shahid Khan is an IT professional. However, none of them has been able to find a suitable job in the war-torn region and their family business was dwindling due to the ongoing turbulence in the Muslim majority Kashmir. 

In the absence of high-speed internet services and limited resources this online initiative is picking up in the central district of Srinagar. However, the brothers cannot enjoy their success to the fullest, fearing another internet outage anytime soon.

Decades of conflict has devastated Kashmir’s economy. The tourism-dependent Kashmir lost its hospitality sector to the animosity between India and Pakistan.

The ongoing violence kept the region busy mourning and people opted for peaceful shutdowns to protest the human rights violations in the region. And in this process kashmir lost billions of dollars.

With the onset of internet technology in the region, more and more youths shifted from online stores to the e-stores.

But every time the online businesses gear up to develope, the government-enforced internet outage in the region fractures the startups. They often have to start from scratch.

Samina Bashir has been shuttling from online to virtual store depending on the challenge she faced.

Over the years India failed to build upon the opportunity industries in Kashmir and this has resulted in a pileup of unemployment. Experts say instead of working on the promises of development, equal opportunity and justice for people of kashmir, New Delhi seems busy amending land laws to gain absolute control of the region and its people.

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