Hundreds of Hemkund Sahib pilgrims evacuated

Sarbjit Dhaliwal

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 27

About 1,200 pilgrims stranded at Gurdwara Gobind Dham were evacuated by the civil administration and the Army today. Given this information, Gurdwara Gobind Ghat’s manager Sewa Singh advised people to avoid undertaking pilgrimage to Hemkund Sahib for the next few days.

Pilgrims were stranded as bridges on various rivers were washed away due to heavy rain that lashed the area between June 24 and June 26. Heavy rain also triggered landslides at various places, thus affecting vehicular traffic and movement of pilgrims.

Hundreds of pilgrims were still stranded at Gobind Dham, but they were safe and there was nothing to worry about them, sources said.

Gurdwara Gobind Ghat and Gurdwara Gobind Dham are the first and the second stop, respectively, on the 19-km trek to Hemkund Sahib.

When contacted on phone, Sewa Singh said by making a temporary bridge on a river near Bhandra village, the Army evacuated about 1,000 pilgrims from Gurdwara Gobind Dham. All of them then reached Gobind Ghat from where some of them were taken to Joshi Math in helicopters, he said.

“I would like to tell all those willing to undertake this pilgrimage to wait till the restoration of the bridge on the river that flows near Bhandra village on way to Gobind Dham from Gobind Ghat,” he said.

“As of now, there are about 900 pilgrims at Gurdwara Joshi Math and about 1,200 at Gurdwara Gobind Ghat,” he said.

Another sewadar Lakhi said a road near Joshi Math was blocked due to a landslide. It was, however, cleared by 5 pm, he added.

Two youths killed in mishap near Rishikesh

Amritsar: Two Amritsar youths were killed in a road mishap near Rishikesh while they were returning from Hemkund Sahib in Uttarakhand. The deceased were identified as Bikramjit Singh (20) and his friend Veer Singh Mattu (21). Bikramjit's elder brother Gopi said 10 local youths left for Hemkund Sahib on motorcycles on Monday. The bike that Bikramjit 

and Veer were riding collided with a truck near Rajinder Nagar, around 20 km from Rishikesh. They were killed on the spot. Their families received information about the accident this morning. "Our family was worried about them following reports of heavy rain and floods in Uttarakhand. Yesterday evening, we received a call from Bikramjit that they had already crossed the dangerous terrain and were about to reach Rishikesh. He said they would be home by Saturday afternoon. In the morning, we received a call that he and Veer had been killed in a road accident," Gopi said.

SGPC sends relief for stranded pilgrims

The SGPC on Saturday sent relief material for the pilgrims stranded at various places in Uttarkhand due to heavy rain. The relief material included wheat flour, cooking oil, pulses, rice, sugar, milk, onion and ginger for preparing "langar" for the pilgrims stranded at Hemkund Sahib, Joshi Math, Gobind Dham and other places in the hill state. An SGPC team also accompanied the truckload of relief material. The team will camp at Joshi Math and facilitate "langar" distribution to the pilgrims. The team will take stock of the situation and send a report to the SGPC.