Amarnath Yatra turned into a seemingly endless march of death Amarnath Yatra turned into a seemingly endless march of death

It was an unusually warm August. When the devout trudge to the holy Amarnath cave nestling at 12,729 ft in a glacial gorge in Kashmir, they expect to see a natural ice lingam which, legend says, waxes and wanes with the moon.

But the lingam was down this year from its normal 8 ft to just 3 ft. Worried that the pilgrims would see little but an insignificant mound of ice, state government officials flew up a 10-ft-high picture of the lingam to the icy cave and pasted it there on August 21.



Nature believed it was time for irony. The next day freezing rain and snow began to fall. It continued for three days, and temperatures plunged to well below zero. For the record number of 1.25 lakh pilgrims, the holy 47 km trek from Pahalgam turned into a seemingly endless march of death. The cold burst blood vessels and sent hundreds into shock. More than 214 died on the road to Amarnath. "It was like Shiva's tandav nritya (dance of death)," says a numbed survivor.

Trapped by driving rain and snow many pilgrims perished in sub-zero temperatures on the road to Amarnath; no weather forecast has been available for several years Trapped by driving rain and snow many pilgrims perished in sub-zero temperatures on the road to Amarnath; no weather forecast has been available for several years

A ponderous administration seemed equally numbed - into inaction. Finally, army and air force helicopters ferried survivors to hospitals in Srinagar. The tragedy also brought out the best in the people of Kashmir: all along the route, local Muslims opened their houses to dazed pilgrims, giving them food and shelter. "We came to Kashmir fearing the Kashmiris, but all we got was help and hospitality," says a grateful Shyam Bhasin of Delhi.When the yatra began, there was little reason to worry about the weather. In the past, you could get by without woollens until Panchtarni, 6.5 km short of the cave. At base camps in Pahalgam - a three-hour drive from Srinagar - officials asked pilgrims to carry blankets for the night. Clearly, no one anticipated the driving rain and howling winds.How could they? Seven years of militancy have knocked out the meteorological infrastructure. Before militants gained control of the mountain tops, a team from the met office was sent to monitor the weather on the trek.

Today, the last observatory is at the head of the route in Pahalgam, and officials could not even tell you what the temperatures were when the pilgrims began to die. From 96,000 in 1988, the fear of the gun had seen the numbers of the pilgrim drop to just 5,000 in 1990.

There was no threat issued by the militants this year, and so the numbers swelled. Without weather information, no one realised the danger from the cold front that swiftly moved in. Lt-General D.D. Saklani, adviser (home), says that the camps en route to the cave merely warned pilgrims not to leave their tents once the rain began. But thousands of pilgrims were already on the road to Amarnath and were caught in the open, suffering severe exposure.



Since there was no militant ban this year, civil officials and security forces were even less prepared for a crisis en route.



"There were announcements, but the choice was between staying out in the open or trying to walk back in the rain," recalls Ajay Arora, a Kurukshetra University student who came for the yatra with 30 other friends.

He stayed back along with two others at Panchtarni, but it was of little use: their canvas tent collapsed under the weight of the snow and the rain. They shivered through the next two nights; their blankets were wet and the log fire they desperately tried to light just wouldn't burn.



As rain lashed the mountains from August 22 to 24, the despair deepened. Arora saw a family of three leave behind a dead relative, who collapsed on the slippery, rock-strewn path after a boulder struck him. "Everyone was looking to save their own lives," says a senior police official.





While the injured and the sick were airlifted, most of the 72,000 stranded pilgrims had to undertake a long and treacherous trek back to the base in Pahalgam While the injured and the sick were airlifted, most of the 72,000 stranded pilgrims had to undertake a long and treacherous trek back to the base in Pahalgam

There was little choice. The administration just wasn't prepared. The last such crisis was in 1969, when 40 pilgrims died after a cloudburst in Pahalgam. This was also the first time in the past three years that both the civil administration and the security forces were comparatively relaxed. There was no militant ban on the yatra. In the past the Harkat-ul-Ansar had tried to disrupt the pilgrimage by planting explosives and hurling grenades. Local officials, eager to project the normalcy-is-returning line, encouraged pilgrims.The response was great, but not so the arrangements. A total of 1,200 tents had been pitched on the route from Pahalgam to the cave. This meant accommodation for approximately 30,000 pilgrims, but according to the administration's own assessment, 72,000 yatris were stranded en route to Amarnath.And so they tried to save themselves from "nature's fury accentuated by human failure", as a senior army official put it. Rescuers were left with the unpleasant task of cremating 87 unidentified bodies. Many people are perhaps still not aware that they have lost family.As the smoke from the cremation pyres crept skyward in Srinagar, Sheshnag and Manigam, troops still scoured the treacherous slopes for bodies. At their wits end wondering what to do with the dead, the administration finally decided to photograph the bodies - many decomposed - and show them on Doordarshan.

Gathering the bodies and evacuating the sick was a logistical nightmare. Pilgrims with broken legs - fractured after they slipped on the track - sat in the snow for two to three days before air force helicopters could pick them up. It was only on the morning of August 25 that the rescue operation began. Helicopters flew 55 sorties ferrying 393 pilgrims and 59 bodies. A team of army doctors attended to the survivors, tackling complaints from frost bite to hypothermia to mountain sickness.





Gathering and removing the dead proved a logistical nightmare for the army and the J&K Police; no vehicles could reach the narrow trekking route Gathering and removing the dead proved a logistical nightmare for the army and the J&K Police; no vehicles could reach the narrow trekking route

While the injured, the sick - and some of the dead - were airlifted, most of the 72,000 stranded pilgrims had to trek back to Pahalgam, where they waited their turn to get into buses that drove them to Srinagar and Jammu. But the agony for the exhausted pilgrims continued: there weren't enough buses.

With assembly elections beginning on September 7, the pro-Pakistan militant outfit Shoura-e-Jehad had issued a strike call barring government employees from work till polling ends on September 30. So few bus drivers were available, and the bone-weary pilgrims had to continue the long walk or hitch rides on trucks.



It was at this time, and earlier too, that pilgrims stuck between Anantnag and Pahalgam saw a facet of Kashmir that few had anticipated. Amar Singh, a shopkeeper from Punjab, and a group of 40 harried pilgrims, were welcomed into the house of bank employee Mohammad Riyaz and his wife. The Riyaz family let them run up a bill of Rs 10,000 in STD calls to anxious family members, and refused to accept money. Finally a dozen pilgrims stayed with Riyaz for three days. Scores of pilgrims similarly found shelter in other homes.



The tragedy brought out the best in the local Muslims, who opened their hearts and hearths to the pilgrims.



Thus did the tragedy give birth to new hope. Until last year, when pro-government surrendered militants took over from pro-Pakistan groups, the homes of Anantnag were part of the nursery of militancy.

But despite the new attitudes, the security forces, mainly the army, continue to engage in a game of one-upmanship, cornering the credit for the rescue operations - though it was largely true - and blaming civil officials for mishandling the crisis.

"Leaving the entire bandobust (arrangements) to the army was sheer dereliction of duty on the part of the civil administration. But for the army's quick response, the toll would have been much higher," says Lt-General Surinder Singh, GOC-in-C, Northern Command. The administration erred in not anticipating the pilgrim turn-out, but officials were present through the rescue operation, providing food and medicines.



The army isn't blameless. There was an alternate route from Pahalgam to Srinagar (via Bijbehara), which could have been used instead of the clogged main highway. But the army at a high-level meeting refused to allow its use, saying that road-opening parties (to secure the area) hadn't been on that route.



The war of attrition between the army and civil officials will continue, but for the pilgrims, it makes little difference. As businessman Sharad Kumar from Haryana says, "The journey was difficult. I am disappointed that I could not reach the cave but happy that I could stay with a Muslim family." The Amarnath tragedy is done with. But unless the lessons - both bad and good - of those fateful August days are learned, every death near the holy cave would have been in vain.



