With the Amarnath Shrine Board, superintending the annual yatra to the Himalayan cave shrine, not being able to scotch allegations about fabricating a man-made himlingam, the chief mahant on Monday continued to turn the heat on the board.
The ASB headed by State Governor Lt Gen (Retd) S K Sinha on Sunday issued a long statement in an attempt to clear the media reports on "artificially and chemically formed ice lingam" in place of the natural one, which for some reasons could not form this year.
The statement in some measure endorsed the reports about the non-formation of the ice lingam at the cave by stating that it had send up two teams to the cave shrine to find out the reasons for non-formation of the himlingam.
The teams had cited reasons of hotter weather receding the glacier expanse as the cause of the non-formation of the himlingam and had stated that the lingam started forming in the last week of May.
The board seems to be in the dock on the issue with the chief mahant Deependra Giri reiterating his demand for a judicial probe headed by a sitting Supreme Court judge to "fix the responsibility and punish the guilty who ordered fabrication of the ice lingam."
The mahant on Monday again repeated his charges adding, the pilgrims returning from the cave shrine had been persistently complaining about the "shape and size of the himlingam" and "their sentiments have been deeply hurt by the man-made lingam."
Terming it as "a sacrilegious act" the mahant said that it had "hurt the sentiments of Hindus across the world and photographs of the lingam taken by the pilgrims also confirmed that the himlingam was not a natural one."
"The formation of the lingam is a divine act and no human being has the authority to interfere in its formation," the mahant said.
Against expectations, the ASB did not issue a direct rebuttal to the mahant's charges.