Open route to Sharada Peeth, Mehbooba Mufti tells PM

Srinagar: Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister and Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) leader Mehbooba Mufti has sought Prime Minister, Narendra Modi’s, personal intervention towards imitating Kartarpur for the State’s minority Brahmins known as Kashmiri Pandits and other Hindus by allowing them to visit Sharada Peeth, a revered shrine of the community located near Muzaffarbad, the capital of PoK.

“Wrote to PM @narendramodi for opening of Sharda Peeth route for facilitating the Pandit community. I hope like Kartarpur, this too will be considered for better peace & prosperity in the region,” she tweeted on Monday, a day after she met a delegation of Save Sharda Committee Kashmir (SSCK).

In her letter to the Prime Minister, Ms Mufti congratulated him on the opening of Kartarpur corridor with Pakistan to facilitate the visit by Sikh pilgrims to theiir revered place of worship in Pakistan and hoped that it will turn out to be “a new leaf in the painful history of relationship” between the two countries and “proves to be the first step towards rediscovering avenues of peace and prosperity in our region.”

She said that Sharada Peeth “is an outstanding relic of Kashmir’s glowing history” and that though it generally connects the people in Jammu and Kashmir with their cultural and intellectual roots, for the Kashmiri Pandits it is an important place of worship which was frequented by them till independence.

“Their urge to open it to pilgrimage has been projected since reopening of Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road,” the letter said. Kartarpur has encouraged the Pandit community to see a possibility of the pilgrimage to Sharada Peeth in the same spirit and our belief is strengthened by the reported offer of Pakistan Prime Minister, Imran Khan to allow it along with pilgrimage to Katas Raj,” the letter said.

While urging the Prime Minister to consider the request on priority, the former chief minister has said that though it will be a measure specific to Pandit community she has no doubt in her mind that it would be welcomed by every citizen of the state and “would considerably help in addressing the feelings of despondency in a major section of population.” She added, “It would very well in the vision of pulling J&K out of its miseries through diplomatic and political means away from death and destruction we witness with unending regularity.”

As chief minister, Ms Mufti had urged the Centre to allow the Kashmiri Pandits to use the Srinagar-Muzffarabad bus for undertaking pilgrimage to Sharada Peeth. This was in response to the demand put forth by the SSCK headed by its founder member Ravinder Pandita that the ancient temple across the Line of Control (LoC) be thrown open to members of Kashmir Pandit community and also the cross-LoC permits be expanded to include religious and heritage tourism.  

The weekly cross-LoC bus rolled between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad and Poonch and Rawlakot in 2005 to facilitate travel by the members of the divided families. But strong voices are being raised on both sides of the de facto border including that from the SSCK that the service may be allowed to be used also for heritage and pilgrimage tourism.    

To visit Sharda for paying obeisance at the ancient seat of learning is something almost every Kashmiri Pandits craves for. Sharda is about 150-kms from Muzaffarabad and is a breath-taking green spot at an altitude of 1981 meters.

Shardi and Nardi are actually the two mountain peaks overlooking the valley, named after legendary princesses Sharda and Narda. It has a captivating landscape with numerous springs and hillsides covered with thick forest.