Whatever happened at the Bhawan of Mata Shri Vaishno Devi in the midnight of 31st December 2021 and 1st January of 2022 is very painful, heartrending and unfortunate. Twelve innocent lives of devotees, who had come at the Durbar of Goddess Durga Devi on the occasion of New Year to obtain the blessings of ‘Mata’ for their healthy, safe and prosperous future perished at the Bhawan within few seconds and without any fault of theirs. This heartbreaking incident has occurred for the first time in the known history of Mata Vaishno Devi Yatra. It is pertinent to mention here that the management of Vaishno Devi Yatra is considered as one of the best managements in the country. In this connection references are given to other yatra’s but this fateful incident of one night has brought a bad name for the management and also upon the local administration. Now several reasons are being attributed for this sorrowful stampede which took lives of twelve devotees. One of them is a heated verbal exchange of words between two groups which turned into pushing each other forcibly and that converted into stampede. Some locals as well as the devotees present there have alleged that this all happened because of the entry of a VIP. According to them, officials of the shrine board on duty tried to push the crowd to accommodate the entry of VIPs, which resulted in the stampede. How far is this true cannot be said but it is a fact that VIP’s are adjusted even in the heavily crowded yatra and the common man is ignored despite being the fact that he has all the way come on foot to pay obeisance at the holy cave of Mata Vaishno Devi. The Shrine Board is also interested in giving priority to the VIP’s by ignoring the common devotees. At several times, common devotees have to wait for hours to have ‘Darshans’ in the holy cave. If as per the version of Board officials there was no VIP, then the second question is how the devotees more than the allowed number has gathered at the Bhawan. Who allowed such a huge number of devotees to proceed for Bhawan without a ‘Yatra Slips (Parchi)’ which is mandatory? Why the devotees were not stopped at the various checkpoints created at various locations en route like base camp ‘Katra’,‘Ban Ganga’ and ‘Aadd Kunwari’. As the devotees have alleged that there was no check at any point and no ‘Yatra Slips’ were issued on the evening of 31st December 2021. One has to take the responsibility but the role of board is undoubtedly in this incident comes under doubt.
