Vaishno Devi Tragedy: Political Storm in J&K Over LG’s Decision Despite Red Alert
Srinagar: A landslide near the holy Vaishno Devi shrine earlier this week has charged the political atmosphere in Jammu and Kashmir with deputy chief minister Surinder Singh blaming lieutenant governor (LG) Manoj Sinha for the tragedy that killed at least 34 people.
Contradicting Sinha’s claim that the pilgrimage in the Trikuta hills of Reasi district in Jammu had been stopped when the landslide took place on Tuesday, the deputy chief minister alleged that the pilgrims were moving towards the shrine at the time of the tragedy.
Sinha is the chairperson of the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board (SMVDSB) that manages the year-long pilgrimage to the holy shrine in Jammu Division, frequented by hundreds of thousands of pilgrims every year.
“As chairman (of SMVDSB), LG saheb has to answer for this,” Singh said. “Why wasn’t the yatra stopped despite a red alert that there will be heavy rains and cloudbursts for a week. The same mistake was committed at Mata Machail Yatra also where the pilgrims were allowed to proceed to the shrine despite bad weather advisory,” he said.
More than 100 people including elderly, women and children, mostly pilgrims on the way to the Mata Machail Yatra in Padder area of Kishtwar, were killed when a 40-60 feet column of water crashed into the hilly village on August 14. Authorities are yet to recover several bodies which were washed away in the disaster.
Ahead of the tragedy near the Vaishno Devi shrine, the Indian Meteorological Department had issued a red alert specifically for Reasi and five other districts of Jammu and Kashmir.
A weather advisory issued by the Jammu and Kashmir administration on August 23 had also warned of “heavy to intense showers” in parts of Jammu division.
Facing questions on why the pilgrims were allowed to proceed towards the hill shrine despite warning of heavy rain and flash floods, Sinha claimed on Wednesday that the yatra had been stopped when the landslide took place on Tuesday afternoon.
“Around noon yesterday (on Tuesday), a cloudburst occurred when the yatra was already suspended,” Sinha claimed, a day after dozens of people, many among them pilgrims, were buried under the rubble of mud, rocks and boulders at Adhkuwari midway along the route to the shrine.
In a statement, an official spokesperson said on Thursday evening that weather was “conducive for the pilgrimage till 10 am” and “as soon as the forecast for moderate rains was received, registrations were immediately suspended”.
However, the spokesperson failed to clarify how the government found the weather conducive for allowing the pilgrims to go up the hilly terrain despite the meteorological department’s alert. The spokesperson also did not elaborate on whether any efforts were made to move pilgrims who had already proceeded to the shrine to safer places after fresh registrations were allegedly stopped.
Demanding a high level probe by the Union government into the tragedy, Singh said, “Whether you [Sinha] were in Uttar Pradesh or Bihar, you only had to make a phone call to stop the yatra which could have saved precious human lives. These pilgrims didn’t die. They were killed due to criminal negligence”.
Sinha was in Bihar on Monday a day before the Vaishno Devi tragedy took place. It was not immediately known when he returned to J&K.
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