KL Report
SRINAGAR
As per the various reports coming from Central Kashmir, around 120 Kashmiri Pandits have started their journey towards Gangbal lake (in Ganderbal district) to perform what they call “traditional three day lake pilgrimage”.
Informed sources told Kashmir Life that a group of 120 Kashmiri Pandits have started their journey towards the lake and are likely to reach Gangbal on Tuesday.
The Gangbal Lake is situated at the foothills of Mount Haramukh, the highest mountain peak in the vicinity of Kashmir valley in Ganderbal district. It is an alpine high altitude lake, home to many species of fish, including the brown trout.
“They [Pandits] will stay for the night at Nara-Nag where they are going to perform puja tonight,” sources told Kashmir Life. “And from tomorrow, they [KPs] will begin the Gangbal Yatra.”
Pertinently, many Kashmiri Pandits have been saying that this place is as “pious as Haridwar” where Hindu pilgrims perform prayers and immerse ashes of the dead. And lately, a “traditional annual three-day-long yatra” has been “revived” by Kashmiri Pandits to “preserve their cultural and religious history”.
At the time when many such high altitude yatras have created controversy by ‘threatening’ the ecology of the place, the Gangbal lake (which has a maximum length of two and a half kilometers and maximum width of one kilometer) is fed by precipitation, glaciers and springs, which makes it vulnerable to any human intervention. The lake water outflows to a nearby Nundkol Lake and then via Wangath nallah to Sind River.
