Says Hindu pilgrims should be allowed to visit their shrines in PoK

The Save Sharda Committee has raised the pitch for allowing Hindu pilgrims to visit their abandoned shrines in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and called upon India and Pakistan to revisit the 2005 agreement on the cross-LoC bus service.

Addressing a press conference in Jammu on Thursday, founder member of the Save Sharda Committee Ravinder Pandita, who is seeking the opening of the route to ancient Sharda shrine in the Neelam area of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, said both South Asian countries should sit together and establish a new mechanism for allowing people to visit the either side of the divided J&K.

Only families which have relatives on either side of J&K are allowed to travel on the cross-LoC weekly bus service.

“We have welcomed the opening of the Kartarpur Sahib corridor and now, J&K needs attention. Both India and Pakistan should open more routes and allow more people-to-people contact. Opening the route to the Sharda shrine could be a major confidence-building measure,” said Pandita.

He said it was a matter of religious right for Pandits to visit the shrine for which activists across the LoC were also fighting with their government.

For the past five years, activists in J&K have opened channels of communication with civil society members in PoK.

“Through these contacts, our friends in PoK would lay flowers at the shrine. A picture of Goddess Sharda was installed on the premises in March 2017. A landmark judgment on the preservation of the shrine was passed by the Supreme Court of PoK,” said Pandita. He said all Shankaracharyas of the country had already written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh to take up the matter with Pakistan.

Allow Sharda Peeth yatra: Congress

Doda: J&K Pradesh Congress Committee chief Ghulam Ahmad Mir also urged India and Pakistan to facilitate the pilgrimage to Sharda Peeth in PoK. On the sidelines of a party rally in Doda district, he said: “Opening of the Kartarpur corridor for Sikh pilgrims is a welcome step We want Sharda Peeth should also be opened. They have been demanding this for 70 years.” oc

Courtesy:The Tribune,Dec 07,2018