VHP general secretary Dr Pravin Togadia demanded immediate arrest of all the Muslims who are opposing the Amarnath Yatra in Jammu & Kashmir and strict action against them. In a press statement issued in New Delhi on June 25 he warned if the Amarnath Yatra was disrupted it would invite sharp reaction from the Hindus all over the country and it would be difficult for Muslims to offer namaz in the mosques.
?It is the demand of all the Hindus that the Muslims should not resort to disruption of the yatra by demanding to take back the land given to the Amarnath Shrine Board. If the Amarnath Yatra is disrupted the Hindus of Rajasthan would not allow any Muslim to visit Ajmer Shariff in future,? he said.
He further said lakhs of devotees visit the Amarnath Cave to have darshan of Lord Shiva. Earlier, the Hindus were forced to leave the Valley and now they are creating trouble in the worship of Lord Amarnath. ?Thousands of our pilgrimage places like Amarnath, Vaishno Devi, Tirupati, Shabrimala, Badrinath and Kedarnath are at the top of the mountains or in the forests. It is the jehadi mentality that the devotees of Amarnath are stopped on the pretext of using the forest. The Deputy Chief Minister of J&K Muzaffar Hussain Baig and some pro-Pakistan Hurriyat Conference leaders have attacked the pilgrims against the decision of the Amarnath Shrine Board to use the forest land without causing any harm to the trees. A large number of pilgrims have to return without having darshan of the holy cave. Many devotees have been injured in the attack on their buses by the jehadis,? the press statement added.
Dr Togadia said if the logic of the jehadis that the pilgrims should not use the forest is accepted today, they would tomorrow create similar objections against the visits to Vaishno Devi, Tirupati and other similar pilgrimage places. ?If the forest land is being polluted by the Amarnath pilgrims, as some Kashmiri Muslims claim, the Hindus of Rajasthan may tomorrow decide that the land of Rajasthan is being polluted due to the visits of Muslims to Ajmer Shariff,? he said.
(FOC)
