PAHALGAM: India is pitching a Hindu pilgrimage to a snowy cave shrine in disputed, Muslim-majority Kashmir as evidence of peace in a state marred by decades of armed conflict amid popular resistance to Indian rule.
The annual yatra, or spiritual journey, to the Amarnath shrine, the hallowed mountain cave where devotees revere an icy stalagmite as an image of Lord Shiva, presents an opportunity for the state of Jammu and Kashmir to show something beyond the frequent skirmishes between armed separatists and Indian soldiers that have cost tens of thousands of lives.
“We’re always in the news for the wrong reasons,” said Khalid Jahangir, deputy commissioner of Anantnag, the district in Kashmir where the yatra takes place.
Every year, the state shells out about 50 crore, $73 million, to support the pilgrims on the at-times treacherous trek to the 3,888-meter (13,000-foot) -high shrine, escorting busloads of people from the nearest airports in armed convoys and posting medical services nearly every mile (two kilometers) of the footpath. Since the yatra began July 1, two dozen pilgrims have died of cardiac arrest and more than 80,000 have been medically treated.
More than 30,000 local Kashmiris rent tents, sell warm-weather gear and walking sticks, and provide transport in the form of ponies and palanquins, or commercial chopper flights, up to the shrine, according to Anup Kumar Soni, additional chief executive of the Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board.
(Agencies)
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