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AMARNATH, JAMMU AND KASHMIR, INDIA, July 20, 2003: As the Amarnath Yatra enters its second week, inclement weather, unregistered pilgrims, multiple injuries and deaths are proving to be a nightmare for both the administration and the devotees. Administration officials said unprecedented cold coupled with a heavy rush of pilgrims was leading to an average of two deaths every day, in certain cases soon after return from the pilgrimage. This, however, had failed to deter the devout and vehicles loaded with over 4,000 pilgrims were arriving daily in Jammu, making the yatra a “logistical nightmare,” they said. “We are ourselves camping in snow, stay arrangements here are limited, inflow of pilgrims is many times more than was envisaged initially,” Commandant Vikram Singh Sahi of 86 CRPF Battalion said. He said pilgrims were being encouraged to immediately leave for the base camps after the “darshan,” worship of the sacred Ice Lingam, as not only is the accommodation small but near-zero temperature at a height of 13,500 feet can have a serious affect on one’s health.



Kamal Juneja, a pilgrim from Patiala, had a successful darshan, but after returning to the Baltal base camp had a massive heart attack. He was shifted to a Srinagar hospital but passed away soon thereafter. Leaving one’s body in the course of a pilgrimage is considered a very auspicious death in Hinduism, as the mind has been fully concentrated on God.



Officials said against 25,000 pilgrims being permitted to have darshan in the first week, more than 60,000 undertook the pilgrimage. Efforts to stop the crowds in Jammu itself, outside the Maulana Azad Stadium, also fail as pilgrims have their way after holding dharnas (a “sit-in” form of protest) and shouting anti-government slogans, they added. Last Wednesday, the administration did not send the daily convoy of pilgrims from Jammu to the base-camps in Baltal and Nunwan. Pilgrim vehicles were also withheld at the Punjab- Jammu border in Lakhanpur to clear the rush. Pilgrims have had to wait for days together in Jammu itself, sleeping on roofs of buses or under the highway overpass in front of the stadium before being allowed to proceed further. Exasperated, many pilgrim vehicles have breached security rules and left for base camps on their own without being part of the daily military controlled convoy.



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