Officials in the state secretariat on Monday said 70 pilgrims from West Bengal were still stranded on the route to the Amarnath cave shrine in Kashmir and efforts were being made to bring them back at the earliest.
The Amarnath Yatra, which was suspended following a cloudburst that triggered a flash flood on Friday, resumed on Monday through an alternative route.
Student Debayan Biswas and another member of the Naihati team Picture credit: Tapas Bhattacharya
“The families of 70 pilgrims have been in touch with us. All of them have been traced and they are safe. They are in different locations. We are coordinating with the Jammu and Kashmir government through our resident commissioner and making efforts to bring them back to West Bengal at the earliest,” said an official at Nabanna.
However, there was no official confirmation till Monday on the number of people from West Bengal who went on the pilgrimage.
Friday’s cloudburst near the cave shrine resulted in at least 16 deaths and left many more injured. Several people are still missing.
Nabanna officials said on Monday evening that all the missing pilgrims about whom they had earlier been alerted by their families had been traced and connected with.
A young woman from Baruipur in South 24-Parganas district on the southern fringes of Kolkata was among those who died in the tragedy. Barsha Muhuri’s body was flown in early on Monday.
Barsha, an MSc final-year student, went for the Yatra with mother Nivedita and maternal uncle Subrata Chowdhury. Two other families that went with Barsha’s family reached Kolkata on the same flight.
Pilgrims head towards the cave. Picture credit: Tapas Bhattacharya
Team reaches cave
A team of 13 from Naihati, in North 24-Parganas district, reached the cave shrine on Monday after a four-hour uphill trek from the Panchtarni campsite, a team member said. They had been camping at Panchtarni for the last four days.
“We started at 9am and reached the cave around 1pm and did darshan. We were asked to return by 3pm as there was a forecast for bad weather,” said Tapas Bhattacharya, one of the team members.
The team trekked down to Domail, on the way to Baltal. “We walked 20km today. We will spend the night at Domail and start for Katra on Tuesday morning,” said Debayan Biswas, another team member.
A team of four from Girish Park in north Kolkata and Ultadanga in the city’s northeastern part reached a spot around 6km from the cave on Monday.
“They are planning to visit the cave on Tuesday,” said Archana Singh, whose husband Pradip Singh and three others are part of the team.