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Bad weather halts pilgrimage to
Amarnath shrine
Jammu:
Thousands of pilgrims continued to remain stranded for the fifth day
at the base camp in Jammu as bad weather forced authorities to postpone
the pilgrimage for yet another day on Thursday. Authorities on Wednesday
allowed pilgrims below the age of 50 years to resume pilgrimage to the
cave shrine in Kashmir but thousands remain stranded at the base camps.
The pilgrimage had begun on schedule earlier this week but heavy snow
in the mountains trapped nearly 600 people en route to the shrine. It
took the army nearly 48-hours to complete the evacuation and it has since
closed the main Baltal route to the cave shrine but allowed the relatively
easier but longer trek from the Nunwan side. Some pilgrims were not convinced
by the explanation given by the officials. "I am here since five days.
The reason they give is that it is snowing very heavily and the way is
blocked. But in the papers at Pahalgam it says that the way has been cleared,"
Babloo Das a pilgrim said. Raju Singh, another pilgrim, said that enough
preparations were not made for comfortable stay. "There are no arrangements
for the pilgrims to stay. Somehow we pass the nights, but the days. We
have to sleep on the ground," he said. Thousands of troops have been deployed
along 50-Kilometre mountain track, which takes pilgrims past roaring streams,
icy lakes and snow-covered mountain before culminating the journey in
the cave shrine.
-June 16, 2006
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