The Jammu and Kashmir Police on Friday said no evidence was found to proceed against officials of the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board in connection with the deaths of 35 pilgrims in a landslide on August 26.
After the incident, a complaint was filed alleging criminal negligence on the part of officials of the board. The officials were accused of ignoring warnings issued by the Meteorological Centre in Srinagar and the Jammu and Kashmir Disaster Management Authority a day earlier about the “possibility of heavy to very heavy rain” at many places, including Reasi district, where the shrine is located. The agencies had also pointed to the possibility of cloudbursts, flash floods, and landslides, but the board did not suspend the yatra, the complaint had alleged.
The pilgrims died when the landslide struck near Adhkunwari, en route to the Vaishno Devi shrine.
“No cognizable offence has been established against the authority,” said the Station House Officer of Bhawan police station in his Action Taken Report (ATR) submitted to the court of the Katra Sub Judge. “The ongoing enquiry has not revealed any evidence implicating the Authority in the commission of any such offence,” he said in reference to the complaint filed by one Rohit Bali, a resident of Talab Tillo, Jammu, seeking the registration of an FIR against officials of the Shrine board.
The SHO filed the ATR in compliance with the directions of the court, which had, on November 4, granted him three more weeks to explain what was done in response to the complaint filed by Bali.
The ATR also pointed out that a final report from the three-member committee constituted in the last week of August by Jammu and Kashmir Lt Governor Manoj Sinha to look into the incident was awaited. This committee, headed by Additional Chief Secretary of Jal Shakti Department, Shaleen Kabra, had been asked to submit its report within two weeks to the L-G, who is also the chairman of the Shri Mata Vaishnodevi Shrine Board.
The Shrine board, which monitors the pilgrimage to the Trikuta Hills, has rejected the allegations in the complaint and has said that the cloudburst on August 26 was unexpected.
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“It was unpredictable and unforeseen from any count. No such event of landslide has ever been recorded in this area in the past,” it had said in a statement.
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah had at the time questioned the decision not to suspend the yatra. Expressing his grief over the incident, he said, “We will have to talk about it later. When we knew about the weather, should we not have taken certain steps to save those lives? The weather warning had come to us a few days ago.”
