Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board (SASB) with various official agencies is exploring the possibility of making the tracks to the 12,729-feet-high revered place of Hindu pilgrimage in Kashmir Himalayas usable before the annual yatra begins on June 25 as scheduled.
Various right-wing Hindu groups, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) being in the forefront of the campaign, have been demanding that the yatra should commence from Jyesht Poornima which falls on June 4 in 2012. Earlier this week, its activists torched effigy of Jammu and Kashmir governor Narendra Nath Vohra, who is also chairman of the SASB, and portraits of state chief minister Omar Abdullah during a protest at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi and threatened to start yatra from Jyesth Poornima “at any cost”.
Also, the VHP recently wrote a letter to President Pratibha Patil, accusing the governor of being instrumental in “reducing the yatra period from 60 days in 2009 to 55 in 2010, 45 in 2011 and now to 39 days.”
The SASB, on the other hand, has been saying from day one that if weather conditions turn favourable and the twin tracks to the cave shrine are cleared of snow and other glacial substance ahead of schedule, the yatra may be advanced by a few days. It had in the backdrop of recommendations of a sub-committee set up by the board in July 2011, consequent to an agreement reached with Baba Yatri Niyas earlier, discussed threadbare the issue of extending the yatra period as demanded by various religious and political parties at a recently-held meeting in New Delhi. The sub-committee headed by Art of Living guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar was asked to determine the duration and schedule of the yatra 2012 and beyond. The spiritual guru briefed the board about the modalities adopted by his sub-committee to finalise its recommendations. It was observed that during the past two pilgrimage seasons, despite vigorous efforts to carry out snow clearance operations on the Chandanwari, She-shnag, Panjtarni and Holy Cave axis, this route could become feasible for travel only around June end.