The condition of three of the injured is stated to be serious.
January 22, 2024 has passed into history. Scenes from a day of religious fervour in many parts of India.
It was another black January 14 for Sabarimala pilgrims with Friday night's stampede tragedy being the third in the history of the hill shrine. The first tragedy shook the shrine on January 14, 1952, when it was gutted in a fire caused by an explosion of fireworks, leaving 66 Ayyappa pilgrims dead. The present shrine was rebuilt in place of the older one. In 1998, 52 pilgrims died following a stampede at Pampa, which also occurred on January 14 after 'Makara Jyothi' darshan.
About 124 pilgrims on a two day visit arrived at the sacred Katas Raj temples in Chakwal district near capital Islamabad on Friday and were overwhelmed by the official reception.
Kiran Bala, who went to Pakistan to attend the Baisakhi festival, changed her name to Amna Bibi.
The electoral battle in Varanasi, according to locals and political experts, is not about whether the PM will win for a third successive occasion, but if he will increase his share of the votes polled and his win margin.
With this batch as many as 53,995 yatris from different parts of the country have left for the cave shrine since the commencement of yatra on June 10.
Sources told rediff.com over telephone that the pilgrims were sitting on the platform of the lorry, which was filled with sand. Most of the pilgrims had died owing to suffocation as the sand in the platform of the lorry had fallen over the pilgrims once the lorry toppled.
A pilgrim, identified as Muhammad, said, "We had to go to the Holy Haram early in the morning without a wash. We thought our complaints would be attended to by the time we returned. But we found that our complaints fell on deaf ears."
There is no use of the BJP targeting the likes of Mamata Banerjee and M K Stalin, directly by the party's political bosses, both in Delhi and the respective state capitals, or even using the Raj Bhavans to fire those salvos from. Successive elections have proved that it's counter-productive, if anything. But the BJP is yet to understand it, acknowledge it, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Leader of the Opposition Sushma Swaraj on Tuesday spoke to Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde and urged him to evacuate pilgrims stranded in Uttarkashi region of Uttarakhand in the aftermath of flash floods there.
Modi brought up the emotive issue of the gurdwara in Kartarpur Sahib, a place sacred to Sikhs as Guru Nanak Dev spent the last years of his life there, and blamed the Congress for country's partition, saying they did it for sake of power.
After being delayed by landslides for two days, pilgrims undertaking the Amarnath yatra resumed their journey on Saturday.
Five pilgrims, including two women, died enroute the 3,880 metre high holy cave shrine of Amarnath in south Kashmir Himalayas, taking the toll during the ongoing yatra to six, police said on Wednesday.
All the five passengers were safe.
The pilgrims have brought with them an expensive velvet chadar for making a collective offering at the tomb of the Sufi saint.
Twenty-four pilgrims were killed and 75 others injured when the truck they were travelling in over turned in Rampur Jhajjhar village along the Punjab-Himachal Pradesh border in the wee hours on Tuesday.
Citing the example of last year, he said many pilgrims who came for the yatra from rural areas of Uttar Pradesh had to return from Rishikesh and Haridwar as they had not registered in advance for it.
The BJP often forgets that in Dravidian Tamil Nadu, the voter does not mix religion, which is personal, and politics that is in the public sphere, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Sheikh Salim Gafur has been selected for the honour as he displayed some rare grit and bravery and continued to drive the bus of the Amarnath pilgrims, which came under attack by the terrorists on July 10, 2017, in Jammu and Kashmir, a home ministry official said.
New Zealand Sikh Society spokesman Daljit Singh, who was in contact with some of the missing pilgrims, said the Indians claimed to be victims of an immigration racket and were charged thousands of dollars by an agent in India on a false promise of permanent residency.
The accident occurred late on Friday, district collector K V Muralidharan said.
Rescue of pilgrims stranded in Badrinath came to an end on Tuesday with about 150 of them being safely evacuated even as the administration struggled with the task of supplying relief to remote parts of Uttarakhand where foodgrain shortage has been reported in 170 villages.
Pakistan on Friday summoned Indian Deputy High Commissioner Gopal Baghlay to lodge a protest over denial of visas to some 500 Pakistani pilgrims to visit the famed shrine of Hazrat Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti at Ajmer.
President Pratibha Patil on Saturday condoled the death of Sabarimala pilgrims in a stampede at Pullumedu in Kerala's Idukki district.In a letter to the Kerala chief minister and governor, she expressed grief over the tragedy.Patil wished a speedy recovery to all those injured in the incident that took place on Friday night. Over 100 pilgrims returning from the shrine were killed and 50 others injured in the stampede.
The first batch comprising 1,160 Amarnath yatris was on Friday flagged off by the state tourism minister from Jammu base camp to the holy cave shrine in south Kashmir Himalayas.
NDRF director general Atul Karwal told PTI that the teams are undertaking continuous familiarisation exercises and conducting simulation drills in the temple town to respond to any contingency.
Two Amarnath pilgrims died and 23 people, including 5 pilgrims, were injured in separate mishaps in Jammu region.
The police claimed the bus driver had violated rules for the pilgrimage.
Toeing the Centre's line for cordial ties with Sri Lanka, key United Progressive Alliance ally Dravida Munettra Kazhagam chief M Karunanidhi on Wednesday virtually blamed Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa for attacks on Lankan pilgrims, saying her action in sending back a football team from that country had led to the incidents.
A day after Kedarnath, the portals of famous Himalayan shrine of Badrinath were reopened on Monday for pilgrims after a gap of six months.
Police said the tragedy was caused by loosening of the stones by recent rains and high velocity winds near the holy cave.
The first batch of 401 state pilgrims on Tuesday left for Haj in two Air India flights from the Srinagar international airport.
Expressing "shock" over the growing number of Amarnath pilgrims' death, which has risen to 97, the Supreme Court on Monday asked the Jammu and Kashmir government to immediately deploy medical aid teams for the yatris.
Sri Lankan pilgrims were targeted for the second day on Tuesday with three buses carrying them to the Tiruchirapalli airport attacked by activists of Tamil outfits.
A group of 213 Hindu pilgrims from Pakistan on Sunday paid obeisance at the Vaishnodevi cave shrine in Trikuta hills in Reasi district of Jammu and Kashmir.
A record number of over 18.2 lakh (1.8 million) pilgrims have visited the shrine so far since January one.
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