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Mansarovar Yatra suspended due to Olympics
The ongoing annual pilgrimage to Kailash Mansarovar will remain suspended for more than three weeks beginning July 26 due to the Beijing Olympics.
The ongoing annual pilgrimage to Kailash Mansarovar would remain suspended for more than three weeks beginning July 26 due to the Beijing Olympics.
"Due to the Beijing Olympics, Chinese authorities have aksed us not to send pilgrims in that country during the period," said Amit Negi, the Managing Director of Kumaon Mandal Vikas Nigam (KMVN), the nodal agency for making arrangements of yatra.
Due to the suspension of yatra from July 26 to Aug 18, devotees of four batches would not be able to undertake the pilgrimage.
Already pilgrims belonging to the first two batches could not go on yatra as it was delayed by 13 days due to "some internal problems" in China.
So the number of batches of pilgrims undertaking the yatra has now been reduced to 10 from the originally planned 16.
The sources, however, said China is not ready to take any chance during the Olympics especially in the face of mounting international pressure on the Tibet issue.