Advani sees ploy to stop Amarnath pilgrimage

Squarely blaming the PDP (without naming it), he said a lot of disinformation had been unleashed by a section of the government to discredit the yatra.

Leader of Opposition LK Advani sees a big ploy in the ongoing violence in the Kashmir valley against the allotment of forest land to the Amarnath shrine board — to stop forever the annual pilgrimage to the 3,880-metre high cave shrine.

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Squarely blaming the PDP (without naming it), he said a lot of disinformation had been unleashed by a section of the government to discredit the yatra.

Advani, who flew in a helicopter to the shrine for a ‘darshan’ of the naturally formed ice Shivalingam there, found to his dismay that the pilgrims were assisted only by the army, even though the Congress and its Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad wanted the yatra to go on uninterrupted.

Speaking at a function in memory of Jan Sangh founder SP Mookherjee, who had opposed thespecial status to J&K, Advani said he had spoken to officials and pilgrims and learnt that, contrary to reports, no one had died of stampede during the yatra.