A cash counter located close to the main shrine or Bhawan (sanctum sanctorum) at Mata Vaishno Devi temple in Katra area of Jammu and Kashmir’s Reasi district was gutted in a fire on Tuesday.
The blaze, which appeared to be massive as per visuals available of the incident, was brought under control in about 45 minutes, officials said. Three employees of the shrine were trapped in the fire but were timely rescued by security forces and fire fighting squad.
Some cash and records were lost in the fire incident, but no injury was reported to anyone, they added.
Reports said the fire broke out at around 4.15 pm due to a short circuit and was brought under control by 5 pm by the fire-fighting squad of the shrine along with security personnel posted there.
While the yatra to Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine, located in the lap of Trikuta Hills in Reasi, is currently on, not many pilgrims are visiting due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The shrine, located 60 km north of Jammu, overlooking the Chenab river, receives more than nine million visitors annually. However, the second wave of Covid-19 has caused a steep decline in pilgrimage traffic to the hilltop temple with a few hundred pilgrims visiting the shrine daily from the peak of 30,000 in March.
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