SRINAGAR : ‘ Chhari Mubarak’, Holy Silver Mace of Lord Shiva, reached Pahalgam from Panchtarni, where it had night halt after day-long puja and traditional rituals in the Amarnath cave shrine yesterday.
The Chhari, carried by Mahant Deependra Giri, custodian of the Holy Mace, left the Cave shrine before dusk yesterday after the final puja of 2013 pilgrimage.
After night halt at Panchtarni, Chhari left at 0700 hrs on the occasion of ‘ Pratipda’ for a night halt at Pahalgam.
Tomorrow on the occasion of ‘ Dvitiya’ ‘Pujan’ & ‘Visarjan’, ceremonies shall be performed at 1015 hrs on the bank of river Lidder.
Thereafter, traditional ‘Kari-Pakouri’ Bhandara shall be organised for Sadhus. With this last ritual, annual pilgrimage of Swami Amarnath Ji shall culminate. Chhari-Mubarak shall return to its abode Amreshwar temple, Deshnami Akharat, Budshah Chowk, at Srinagar.
A large number of devotees, majority of them sadhus, joined the final puja in the cave shrine yesterday.
However, Governor N N Vohra, who is chairman of the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB) could not go to cave shrine due to rain and bad weather.
More than 3.54 lakh pilgrims, including women and sadhus, paid obeisance at the Cave shrine during the 55-day-long yatra, which commenced from both shortest Baltal and traditional Pahalgam tracks from June 28.
However, the number of yatris dropped considerably this year against last year’s 6.50 lakh pilgrims.
The drop in the number of yatris this time was due to Uttrakhand tragedy.
The SASB had also taken a number of measures for the security of pilgrims this time, when it decided not to allow any unregistered yatri besides those above 75 years and below 13 years.
All the yatris had to submit a medical certificate that he or she is fit to undertake the pilgrimage this time which helped the authorities to prevent deaths during the yatra.
SASB,CEO Naveen Kumar Choudhary said a total of 13 Yatris had lost their lives during this Yatra, compared to 93 last year and 106 in 2011 which had pilgrimage of 6.21 lakh and 6.35 lakh, respectively.
He added that the loss of even a single life is a matter for sadness and deep concern and efforts will continue to be made for ensuring against loss of lives due to medical reasons, by further enlarging the awareness campaign to deter those of unfit status to undertake the Yatra.
He said that the Mata Vaishno Devi pilgrimage had also been affected, where the number of Yatris was about 7 lakh less than the corresponding period last year.
The other factors included the affect of statements about perceived threats of terror attacks and the emerging law and order scenarios.
During the entire yatra period, Mr Vohra has been daily monitoring all important aspects of the Yatra.
The Governor has asked Mr Choudhary to urgently coordinate action with the Municipal Committee Pahalgam, and the CEOs of the Sonamarg and Pahalgam Development Authorities to immediately launch a massive post-Yatra sanitation drive to see that the entire Yatra area is cleaned up in the next few days.
He also reiterated his earlier directions about the complete cleaning up of all camp sites which were being evacuated. The Governor would be undertaking a visit to the entire Yatra area in the next few days to see whether the cleanliness drive had been effectively carried out.
The CEO expressed satisfaction that this year’s Yatra was better regulated than in 2012. For this, he thanked the Yatris for their cooperation in satisfying the mandatory requirement of obtaining compulsory Health Certificates before seeking registration to undertake the Yatra.
The CEO acknowledged certain shortcomings which had come to light in regard to the registration processes followed by the banks and said that these and all other deficiencies would be sorted out for providing improved arrangements for Yatra 2014. (AGENCIES)
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