Twenty-two years after feeling the Valley of Kashmir, thousands of brahmin hindus and other devotees on Tuesday returned to their ancestral homeland to pray at the sacred shrine of Khirbhawani. As has been a routine for the past few years, they were joined by a small number of their co-religionists who chose not to leave the Valley in 1990 when the separatist campaign by local Muslims burst into a major violence.
Rough estimates put the number of the worshippers who arrived at the historic temple, which sits next to a sacred stream, 27-km north of summer capital Srinagar, from Jammu, Delhi and other parts of the country at 20,000 to seek blessings from the goddess Ragnya Devi coinciding with the festival of Jyestha Ashtami.
However, the number of visitors in 2012 was less as compared to 2011. The state-owned Road Transport Corporation (SRTC) had pressed into service 50 buses to bring the devotees from different camps and migrant-concentrated locations at Jammu to Khirbhawani temple. Most people chose to relocate here in their own or hired vehicles and many of them after praying here fanned out to visit various hill resorts and within Srinagar the famous Mughal gardens and enjoy shikara rides on Dal and Nagin lakes. Chief minister Omar Abdullah who visited the temple later during the day while asserting Kashmir was incomplete without pandits said that a multifaceted programme for their return is already in place and that the government has introduced new initiatives to facilitate their return. He underlined the sense of security and economic safeguards basic elements to help return of Kashmiri pandits to their native land. “My government is focusing on both these crucial aspects…the prevalent peace and improved security situation is proving a catalyst in this process,” he said.