Kashmir before militancy shut down entertainment
Updated On: 25 September, 2022 11:05 AM IST | Heena Khandelwal
As a multiplex opens in the Valley, the first theatre in 33 years, those in showbiz tell the story of what it was like before militancy shut down entertainment
Educationist Vijay Dhar is behind the opening of Srinagar’s first multiplex, INOX. He is photographed a day ahead of the inauguration of the multiplex comprising three auditoriums with a capacity of 520 seats. Dhar used to run Broadway Theatre, a 750-seater single screen theatre in Sonawar. Most cinemas in Kashmir have remained closed for the last 30 odd years. Pics/Getty Images
On January 1, 1990, all cinema halls were shut down,” recalls Vijay Dhar over a phone call from Srinagar. Dhar used to run Broadway Theatre in Sonawar, a 750-seater single screen, which was inaugurated in 1965.
The curtains fell after a militant outfit ordered closure of theatres and liquor shops in Kashmir; according to reports, grenades were also hurled at some. “There was a bomb blast in Broadway,” he remembers, “[thankfully] there was no casualty.” Dhar left the Valley during the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits, but returned two years later at his mother’s insistence.
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