July 03, 2007	Tuesday	Jamadi-us-Sani 17, 1428

SRINAGAR, July 2: Thousands of Hindu pilgrims faced disappointment on Monday after a large, sacred phallic-shaped icicle in a Himalayan cave melted -- leaving people blaming body heat or global warming.

Hundreds of thousands of devotees make a long, tiring trek to the Kashmir mountains each year to look at the natural icy formation, worshipped as a symbol of the god of destruction, Shiva.

But by Monday, just the second day of the two-month-long pilgrimage, the pilgrims only had a tiny stump of ice to look at — compared to a 3.6-metre high formation that was there a few weeks ago. “The Shivlingam (Shiv phallus) has melted down completely,” Arun Kumar, a senior official of the pilgrimage board, told newsmen.

A variety of factors, from body heat to global warming, were cited as possible causes for its disappearance in the cave located 3,800 metres above sea level.

“Hot and humid weather, besides global warming, are responsible for the early melting,” said Kumar, without elaborating.

The pilgrimage route to one of Hinduism's top religious sites is heavily guarded by Indian security forces to prevent possible attacks by rebels fighting New Delhi's rule in Kashmir.

Local papers speculated that a glacier above the Amarnath cave was melting in line with glacier retreat in the Himalayas linked to global warming.—AFP