Srinagar: Amid a rapid decline in the footfall of pilgrims and the complete melting of the ice Shiva Lingam in the cave shrine, authorities in Kashmir have suspended the Amarnath Yatra reportedly due to “urgent repairs” that have been taken up even as the annual pilgrimage is officially still on.
“Due to the considerable reduction in the flow of pilgrims and the urgent repairs and maintenance of the Yatra tracks at vulnerable stretches being undertaken by the Border Roads Organisation, movement of pilgrims on both tracks leading to the Holy Cave is not advisable,” the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board, the nodal body responsible for organising the pilgrimage, said in a statement.
The sacred Hindu pilgrimage, which started on July 1 this year, was planned to be the longest in history, with officials expecting more than half a million pilgrims to pay obeisance at the cave shrine located in the high mountains of south Kashmir.
The purported aim of stretching the pilgrimage in the environmentally-fragile Himalayas, which are the hotspots of climate change, was to showcase “normalcy” in Kashmir. The Union government has termed the record-duration pilgrimage as a “reflection of government’s confidence” in the J&K situation following the reading down of Article 370.
According to officials, elaborate arrangements were made for the pilgrimage this year, with dozens of security personnel deployed for the security of each pilgrim as they made their way from Jammu to the cave shrine in south Kashmir.
Due to security concerns, locals in Kashmir were subject to grave inconvenience, with no civilian vehicle allowed to move on the roads when the convoys of the pilgrims proceeded from Jammu towards the cave shrine in Kashmir.
This year, six base hospitals were set up along the twin routes to the cave shrine with thousands of security forces monitoring the movement of pilgrims using drones, choppers and RFID tags.
J&K’s Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha had said that the “more pilgrims will open more opportunities for livelihood for locals and will help boost J&K’s economy further”.
Initially, the number of Hindu devotees who paid obeisance was in five figures, with even the official spokesperson issuing daily bulletins about the attendance recorded at the cave shrine.
However, by August, the number of pilgrims started to dwindle, with only 984 pilgrims leaving Jammu base camp to perform the pilgrimage on August 2 from both Chandanwari and Baltal routes to the shrine.
On Monday, August 21, the number came down further to just 362, with no pilgrim opting to undertake the pilgrimage from the Pahalgam route, the longest among the twin routes leading to the cave shrine which is located at an altitude of 3,888 m in south Kashmir’s Lidder Valley.
“To everyone’s dismay, the ice Shivalingam in the cave shrine has melted completely — much earlier (in July) as compared to previous years — because of hot weather,” according to a report.
There was no clear explanation on the need for undertaking repairs of the tracks leading to the shrine in the middle of the pilgrimage, even though the weather has been relatively favourable this year.
Officials said that the holy mace of Lord Shiva (Chari Mubarak) shall proceed towards the traditional Pahalgam route as per the plan.
A special prayer session or ‘Chhari-Pujan’ of the holy mace was performed on the occasion of Nag Panchami on Monday, August 21, at Srinagar’s Shri Amareshwar Temple in Mahadev Gir Dashnami Akhara.
Mahant Deependra Giri, the custodian of the mace, will carry the mace to the Amarnath cave shrine with night halts planned in Pahalgam on August 26-27, Chandanwari on August 28, Sheshnag on August 29 and Panchtarni on August 30.
There will be a special prayer and darshan on the morning of Shravan Purnima on August 31 at the shrine, officials said.
According to officials, the pilgrimage has seen “overwhelming footfall” this year with more than 4.4 lakh pilgrims having paid obeisance at the shrine so far, and “43 pilgrims have died due to natural causes or accidents this year,” officials said.
Last year, a cloudburst struck the base camp of the pilgrimage near the cave shrine, killing 16 pilgrims while 40 pilgrims were reported missing, prompting officials to revise the route plan for the pilgrims proceeding to the shrine.
According to official data, 3.85 lakh pilgrims paid obeisance at the shrine in 2022 when the yatra resumed after a gap of three years due to the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021 and 2020 and uncertain security situation in the aftermath of the reading down of Article 370 when the sacred pilgrimage was cut short.
In 2017, a report titled ‘Amarnath Yatra: a Militarised Pilgrimage’ prepared by Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society flagged the issues of “militarization, communal conflicts, resource monopolisation and ecological devastation” caused by the annual pilgrimage.
In 1996, at least 250 pilgrims were killed due to excessive cold and snow blizzards that struck the cave shrine, prompting the then government to set up a committee for suggesting measures to avoid recurrence of such tragedies in future.