By Baldev S. Chauhan
Shimla, March 11 – Work has begun to clean a holy lake on the edge of a monastery in Himachal Pradesh where hundreds of fish died due to overfeeding and pollution after a gathering of Tibetan monks that included the Dalai Lama.
Ironically, Buddhist monks consider the waters of the lake holy and do not allow fishing there.
The picturesque lake, which has a circumference of almost two km, is surrounded by mountains and has tiny floating islands with Buddhist flags fluttering in the breeze.
Feeding fish at the lake here is a daily ritual for monks and visitors at the lake. The food often consists of leftovers from the ancient monastery.
“About 150 large dead fish have been retrieved from the lake,” said an official at Rewalsar in Mandi district, 200 km from here. Another 120 were found Monday.
“We have banned the use of flour and other food articles for the fish and we have started adding potassium permanganate to clean the murky waters,” said Arun Sharma, a senior official monitoring the operations.
“Although such incidents have taken place in a small way in the past, this is the largest death toll, and it happened due to the large gathering of the Buddhists here,” Sharma told IANS.
Others said many more fish had died, particularly the smaller fish.
“The toll seems to be much higher than what the officials claim,” said Dharam Prakash Gupta, a local resident.
Published reports say around four tonnes of fish have died over the weekend and many more would die in the polluted lake waters.
About 35,000 Tibetan monks and nuns, including their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, had gathered at the monastery from Feb 29 to March 4.
Hundreds of monks are still at the monastery. The highlight of the festival was on March 1 when over 40,000 pilgrims gathered at the monastery.
“Even if 25,000 devotees offered just 100 grams of feed to the fish, more than 25 tonnes of wheat and corn flour was immersed into the lake on March 1 alone,” said J.L. Dogar of the fisheries department.
While a holy gathering of Buddhists takes place every year here, this year was a special event because it was a ‘mahakumba’ that takes place once in 12 years.
Reports said monks were seen burying the dead fish, as they are forbidden to eat meat and also because they consider the lake holy.
