SRINAGAR, Oct 2: The Supreme Court has granted two weeks time to Jammu and Kashmir government to decide its measures to be adopted for making the annual Amarnath Yatra, one of the holiest pilgrimages for Hindus, safe.
A bench of justices B S Chauhan and Swatanter Kumar asked the J&K government to take a decision on the various recommendations made by a high power committee appointed by the apex court.
The reply from the government will be crucial in Kashmir where separatists recently threatened to agitate after reports of plans to construct a macadamised road right up to cave shrine, 3880m high in the Himalayas.
Civil society members say any such move would be an “environmental disaster” given the fragile ecology of the pilgrimage route which passes through glaciers and ice-fed streams.
In 2008, a mass popular uprising erupted after the government decided to transfer 100 acres of forest land to the shrine’s managing board. In the protests, which snowballed into massive anti-India demonstrations, more than 60 people died after police or paramilitary firing on angry protesters.
The decision was revoked after the protests, but the government fell as the People’s Democratic Party withdrew support to a coalition with the congress party. Then chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, who is presently the union health minister, was months short of completing his party’s turn for 3 years (out of the total six years as head of the government) when he decided to resign than to prove a majority of supportive legislators in the assembly.
The apex court has posted the case for further hearing on October 12.
It had on July 20 had set up a committee to recommend measures to prevent the growing number of casualties among Amarnath pilgrims saying it had become a permanent problem and a regular affair.
The court had passed the order after taking suo motu note of media reports of at least a hundred pilgrims’ deaths allegedly due to lack of proper facilities and medical care.
The committee comprises secretaries of various departments including those from the ministries of Environment and Forest, the Home Affairs and the Health and Child Welfare, besides the Jammu and Kashmir chief secretary.
They were to examine and report on various issues which include widening of passage, checking pilgrims’ health, improving medical facilities for them, deployment of adequate security personnel and assessing environment impact, the court had said.
(with inputs from PTI)
