80 yatris allowed to proceed for Kedarnath

DEHRADUN: Two days after the Rudraprayag district administration issued an order suspending yatra to Kedarnath from Sonprayag in Rudraprayag district, till June 30, state officials on Monday allowed over 80 devotees at Sonprayag, 12 km from Kedarnath, to proceed further to reach the shrine.
Officials said while over 80 pilgrims have already left for Kedarnath, many more are planning to join them to reach the holy shrine.“We are yet to ascertain the exact number of those who left for Kedarnath on Monday,” said an official in tourism department.
Chief minister Harish Rawat said senior state official permitted these devotees to start trekking for Kedarnath from Sonprayag, minutes after they protested against the state government on Monday for unnecessarily stopping them at Sonprayag.
Most of them said they had been staying at Sonprayag for the last two days to wait for state government’s green signal to move further. “If we can come up to Sonprayag from far off places, why can we not go to Kedarnath,” said a devotee, Radha Singh, from Jaipur.
The decision to allow them to move further was taken after improvement in weather conditions.