JAMMU, Apr 28: Union minister Maneka Gandhi has urged Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti to phase out the 5,000-plus horses and ponies used for transportation of goods and people to the Vaishno Devi shrine.
These equines should be instead replaced with battery-operated carts on the Mata Vaishno Devi track, Gandhi said in a letter written on Thursday.
Several pilgrims opt to cover the 12-13 km journey to the holy shrine on horses, ponies, mules and donkeys, which Gandhi has written, are a source of a highly contagious and communicable zoonotic disease called glanders.
“The equine owners are at the greatest risk of being exposed to the deadly glanders virus which has no cure anywhere in the world. The person who contracts it from a horse/mule dies of flu-like symptoms,” the letter read.
Last year National Green Tribunal had ordered the Jammu and Kashmir government to ensure that horses and mules are slowly removed from the path.
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