As Pahalgam wounds heal, Mela Kheer Bhawani witnesses huge turnout

Tulmulla: Leaders across party lines on Tuesday hailed the congregation of devotees at the Mela Kheer Bhawani in Kashmir in the wake of the Pahalgam attack as a symbol of resilience and advocated for the dignified return of Kashmiri Pandits to the valley.

Mela Kheer Bhawani, one of the biggest religious functions of Kashmiri Pandits, is being celebrated on ‘Zyeth Atham’, also known as ‘Jyeshtha Ashtami’, on Tuesday.

Amid tight security arrangements, hundreds of people, mostly Kashmiri Pandits, left for the Valley in a convoy of 60 buses early Sunday from Jammu to take part in the annual fair in Ganderbal district.

President of the ruling National Conference (NC), Farooq Abdullah, hoped that Kashmiri Pandits would return to the Valley as their presence at the Mela Kheer Bhawani in the aftermath of the Pahalgam attack was “a befitting reply” to its perpetrators.

“This (presence of devotees at the mela) is a huge thing. This is Mata’s (temple deity) doing. She has called them here, to their homes,” Abdullah told reporters here after visiting the temple shrine during the annual mela.

“Fear among people is beginning to end. This is a befitting reply to those who want to end brotherhood in the hearts of the people,” Abdullah, a former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, said.

Abdullah said Kashmir is a place of “rishi-munis and sufis”, and the Kheer Bhawani Mela is part of this common faith.

He expressed hope that the mela would spark the Kashmiri Pandits’ return to their homeland.

“People come here for darshan, to pray for an end to their problems as well as the problems facing the country. We have also come here and hope the mela is the beginning of the return of our brothers and sisters so that they can live here.

“We have come here with the hope that Mata will bring them back home so that they live here comfortably,” he said.

NC alliance partner, the Jammu and Kashmir Congress, also asserted that the turnout at the mela was a befitting reply to the Pahalgam terror attack and shows how the people of Kashmir continue to believe in religious brotherhood.

“Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Christians all have come here. We have celebrated festivals together,” J&K Congress chief Tariq Hameed Karra said.

He also highlighted the need to politically empower the Kashmiri Pandit community for their return to the Valley. “We want Pandit brothers to return, but that cannot be achieved by just taking cosmetic measures,” Karra said.