Reports from Samba said that the pilgrims and volunteers were returning home in Uttar Pradesh and New Delhi from langar duty at Baltal, one of the base-camps of the annual yatra. The truck they were travelling in rolled down into the deep gorge at Zamoorha Morh on Mansar road in Samba district killing at least eight of them on the spot while five others succumbed to their injuries in Samba district hospital, District Hospital, Mubarak Singh, deputy commissioner of Samba said. Seventeen injured pilgrims were shifted to Government Medical College, Jammu, after preliminary treatment in Samba, where three of them died later.
Samba SSP Israr Khan said the administration requisitioned the help of the Army and the BSF, which reached the spot to join the operations, as civil and police administration was running short of search lights to trace more people in the gorge. A total of 34 pilgrims were reportedly travelling in the truck when it met with the accident at 11 pm on Thursday. Local people also joined the rescue operations, reports said.
This was second major accident involving Amarnath yatris in Jammu region. On the intervening night of July 14 and 15, 15 pilgrims were killed when a SRTC bus bringing pilgrims back from the yatra, had rolled down into a gorge near Ramban on Jammu-Srinagar Highway.
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CM: Violence in west assam not communal
Age correspondent
GUWAHATI, JULY 27
Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi here on Friday claimed that violence in Western Assam was not “communal” but growing sense of deprivation was giving rise of such conflicts between the two communities in the state.
Mr Gogoi also chose to target the BJP leaders accusing them of presenting a distorted picture of the conflict and describing it a communal violence. However, most of the Opposition political parties have sought the resignation of Mr Gogoi accusing him of failing to give security to minorities of the state.
Claiming that situation in trouble-torn Western Assam was limping back to normal, Mr Gogoi told reporters that such conflict was not new to Assam.
He doled out comparative figures of death tolls during the conflicts of similar nature between two different communities since 1994 to suggest that casualty in Kokrajhar riot was not very high but displacement was very high as 3.92 lakh people fled their homes.
Mr Gogoi however clarified that killing of even 45 people so far in this riot cannot be justified.