Amarnath Yatra ends, sees major drop
The nearly two month-long Amarnath yatra ended on Wednesday, coinciding with Raksha Bandhan. As many 3.54 lakh pilgrims from different parts of the country paid obeisance at the 12,729-foot-high cave-shrine dedicated to Lord Shiva in Kashmir Himalayas during the yatra period.
Last year, a record number of 6.50 lakh pilgrims had visited the place of worship. The considerable drop witnessed this year is attributed to various factors, including the diversion of funds, earmarked by Sangh Parivar groups and private donors to encourage people to visit Amarnath, to the victims of the recent devastating floods in Uttarakhand. Also, the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB) had initiated a slew of measures to prevent unhealthy and aged people from undertaking the arduous journey through rugged hills to Amarnath and making prior registration of the pilgrims mandatory.
However, SASB CEO Navin K. Choudhary while reacting to “speculation” said several influencing factors were responsible for the reduced scale of this year’s yatra. This, he said, included the Uttarakhand disaster, following which the tourist and pilgrim traffic to all the hilly states had witnessed a sharp decline. He added that the Mata Vaishno Devi pilgrimage in Trikota hills near Jammu has also been affected, where the number of pilgrims was about 7 lakh less than in the corresponding period last year. “The other factors included the affect of statements about perceived threats of terror attacks and the emerging law and order scenarios,” he asserted.
The holy mace of Shiva, called Charri Mubarak, was on Wednesday morning taken inside the cave-shrine by custodian Mahant Dependra Giri who was being accompanied by a groups of sadhus chanting religious hymns.
They offered puja and prayed for peace in the country, especially in Jammu and Kashmir, before staring return journey. The annual yatra had begun from both traditional Pahalgam and shorter Baltal routes on June 28.
A statement issued by the SASB said that due to rain and poor visibility beyond Sonamarg, governor N.N. Vohra, who is also chairman of the board, could not fly into the cave-shrine area where he was going to join the rituals.
Expressing satisfaction over the smooth conduct of this year’s yatra, the governor thanked the Jammu and Kashmir government, Army, CRPF, BSF, ITBP, state police and BSNL and five banks involved with the registration of pilgrims.
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