Thousands of Hindu devotees yesterday began an annual pilgrimage through mountain passes and meadows to an icy Himalayan cave in Indian-controlled Kashmir amid heavy security in the Muslim-majority region.
Officials said that pilgrims face heightened threat of attacks from rebels fighting against Indian rule.
They for the first time tagged devotees with a wireless tracking system. They have also deployed drones for surveillance.
Photo: AP
The religious activity has in the past few decades been the target of attacks by suspected Muslim rebels who accuse India of using it to reinforce its grip on the disputed region.
This year’s pilgrimage comes after two years of suspension because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The worshipers early yesterday began their arduous trek through forested mountain passes with a view on snowy peaks. Some rode horses or wooden litters carried by porters. Some chanted religious hymns on their way to pray at the hallowed mountain cave’s Amarnath shrine, where Hindus worship Lingam, a naturally formed ice stalagmite inside the cave, as an incarnation of Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction and regeneration.
In massive security arrangements, tens of thousands of police, and soldiers carrying automatic rifles and wearing flak jackets, have been deployed to guard the pilgrimage. They have set up checkpoints, barricades and temporary camps along the routes leading to the cave.
Rebels fighting for decades against Indian rule in Kashmir accuse Hindu-majority India of using the pilgrimage as a political statement to bolster its claim over the disputed Himalayan region.
Since 1989, the pilgrimage has been targeted by rebels who have been fighting for Kashmir’s independence from India or its merger with Pakistan.
In 2017, assailants sprayed bullets at a bus carrying Hindu pilgrims in the region, killing at least seven people and injuring 19 while they were returning from the shrine.
The Indian government blamed Muslim rebels for the attack.
However, separatist leaders accused Indian intelligence agencies of carrying out such attacks to sabotage Muslims’ struggle for self-determination.
Many Kashmiri Muslims have long complained that the government curbs their religious freedom on the pretext of law and order, while promoting and patronizing the Hindu pilgrimage.
At least 50 pilgrims have been killed in three dozen attacks blamed on militants in past three decades.
However, hundreds have died due to exhaustion and exposure in harsh weather during journeys in the icy mountains.
Hundreds of thousands of Hindus from across India typically take part in the pilgrimage, which lasts up to 45 days. This year, officials expect nearly 1 million visitors after the two-year gap in the annual endeavor.
Worshipers approach the Amarnath cave on two routes: a traditional one via the southern hill resort of Pahalgam that takes three days, or a one-day journey through northeastern Baltal.
Some also use helicopter services to pay quick obeisance.
The cave, at 4,115m above sea level, is covered with snow most of the year, except a short period in summer when it is open for the pilgrims.
The pilgrimage concludes on Aug. 11, a full-moon night that Hindus say commemorates Shiva revealing the secret of the creation of the universe.
AFGHAN CHILD: A court battle is ongoing over if the toddler can stay with Joshua Mast and his wife, who wanted ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ for her Major Joshua Mast, a US Marine whose adoption of an Afghan war orphan has spurred a years-long legal battle, is to remain on active duty after a three-member panel of Marines on Tuesday found that while he acted in a way unbecoming of an officer to bring home the baby girl, it did not warrant his separation from the military. Lawyers for the Marine Corps argued that Mast abused his position, disregarded orders of his superiors, mishandled classified information and improperly used a government computer in his fight over the child who was found orphaned on the battlefield in rural Afghanistan
NEW STORM: investigators dubbed the attacks on US telecoms ‘Salt Typhoon,’ after authorities earlier this year disrupted China’s ‘Flax Typhoon’ hacking group Chinese hackers accessed the networks of US broadband providers and obtained information from systems that the federal government uses for court-authorized wiretapping, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Saturday. The networks of Verizon Communications, AT&T and Lumen Technologies, along with other telecoms, were breached by the recently discovered intrusion, the newspaper said, citing people familiar with the matter. The hackers might have held access for months to network infrastructure used by the companies to cooperate with court-authorized US requests for communications data, the report said. The hackers had also accessed other tranches of Internet traffic, it said. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs
EYEING THE US ELECTION: Analysts say that Pyongyang would likely leverage its enlarged nuclear arsenal for concessions after a new US administration is inaugurated North Korean leader Kim Jong-un warned again that he could use nuclear weapons in potential conflicts with South Korea and the US, as he accused them of provoking North Korea and raising animosities on the Korean Peninsula, state media reported yesterday. Kim has issued threats to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively numerous times, but his latest warning came as experts said that North Korea could ramp up hostilities ahead of next month’s US presidential election. In a Monday speech at a university named after him, the Kim Jong-un National Defense University, he said that North Korea “will without hesitation use all its attack
STOPOVERS: As organized crime groups in Asia and the Americas move drugs via places such as Tonga, methamphetamine use has reached levels called ‘epidemic’ A surge of drugs is engulfing the South Pacific as cartels and triads use far-flung island nations to channel narcotics across the globe, top police and UN officials told reporters. Pacific island nations such as Fiji and Tonga sit at the crossroads of largely unpatrolled ocean trafficking routes used to shift cocaine from Latin America, and methamphetamine and opioids from Asia. This illicit cargo is increasingly spilling over into local hands, feeding drug addiction in communities where serious crime had been rare. “We’re a victim of our geographical location. An ideal transit point for vessels crossing the Pacific,” Tonga Police Commissioner Shane McLennan
RSS