After the death of a woman hit by a falling boulder on May 11 pm on the bridle path to Kedarnath, the Rudraprayag district administration has decided to increase the number of police, State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) and home guards personnel posted on the path.
Garhwal Inspector General Ajay Rautela said the police personnel have been given orders to instruct pilgrims about the danger zones on the pedestrian way ahead.
The force at Kedarnath has been re-deployed on the bridle path in order to avoid any such incidents in the future. Rautela said, “We have re-deployed force at that path. Extra precautions will be taken.”
Rudraprayag Superintendent of Police SP Ajai Singh said, “We re-shuffle the force deployed according to the weather conditions.
We can’t tell the fixed number because it keeps on changing according to the conditions. Basically, sometimes glaciers slide down on the path, to remove that or to instruct pilgrims moving forward we deploy more force. There was also snowfall in the past two days, so according to that we deploy forces where the path is problematic. For example in the morning time the problem is around Lincholi. Sometimes we stop pilgrims at the stoppage points, if the weather is not good higher on the route.
Sometimes we stop pilgrims at Gaurikund. We work according to the inputs we are given by our seniors.”He further added, “There are some points, for example from Gaurikund pilgrims start their Yatra from morning 5 AM and generally they start moving till around 11 AM because if they don’t start early they will not be able to reach on time. Our target is to make sure that pilgrims reach their stop during daylight only.”