Devotees going to Amarnath in the last days of the yatra, ending August 13, coinciding with Shravana Poornima and Raksha Bandhan, might be disappointed as the Shivling, the most interesting phenomenon of the annual pilgrimage, is melting fast and might even disappear soon.
On June 29, when the yatra began with Prathan Pooja at the 12,729-foot-high cave-shrine, an 18-foot-high naturally formed Shivling stayed at the sanctum sanctorum, which has been reduced by more than half in the past two weeks. The thaw is attributed to the heavy influx of devotees. Till Monday, 258,376 people had a darshan of the Shivling, most of them being unregistered pilgrims. The Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board and the state authorities have failed to stop the overcrowding at the place of worship.
Under norms laid down on the recommendation of the Nitish Sengupta Committee, set up after a mid-1990s incident in which 273 pilgrims and large number of local hosts had died, only a few thousand pilgrims should be allowed to visit the cave-shrine daily. The committee had suggested that a maximum of 3,500 pilgrims should be allowed into the shrine daily — 2,800 from Pahalgam and 700 from Baltal — and also mooted mandatory registration of yatris and allocation of fixed quotas for states.
Outbound pilgrims interviewed by this newspaper on Monday said they had to wait in long queues for over six hours before being able to pay obeisance to the Shivling.
“The Shivling I saw yesterday was smaller than the one shown in the photographs released in the initial days of the yatra. But I think I’m still lucky to catch a glimpse of it. What I’m worried about is that it may not be there in the next couple of weeks unless corrective measures are taken. The devotes who turn up then will only be disappointed,” said Durga Prasad Kaw, a pilgrim from Panipat.