A senior Jammu and Kashmir government officer has allegedthat he was held up for hours in an ambulance with his father's body on theSrinagar-Jammu national highway because of traffic restrictions for theAmarnath Yatra on Thursday.

Imtiyaz Wani, Director Finance in Jammu and Kashmirgovernment, said that he was taking his father's body to his home in Srinagarfrom Jammu when the ambulance was forced to stop until the convoys carryingAmarnath pilgrims completed their movement on the highway. The police claimedit is a "misrepresentation of facts".The administration has placed adaily five-hour restriction on locals travelling on the arterial highwaybetween Jammu and Srinagar, for 46 days till August 15 when the pilgrimageends.

Mr Wani took to social media to complain. "All civilrights are subordinate to Amarnath Yatra while moving from Jammu to Srinagar. Iam not being allowed to carry forward my father's dead body. What hell the lifeof a common Kashmiri is. Inspector Rakesh of J&K Police on yatra dutycategorically said the body shall not be allowed," he wrote on Facebook. MrWani's father died in Delhi.

The police said the ambulance was stopped as it tried toovertake the convoy."The ambulance was trying to overtake the Yatra convoywhich was not allowed by the convoy commander. The person in ambulance claimedthat the vehicle is carrying dead body of his father but the (security) officercould not verify the facts in the moving convoy. Thus, the vehicle was notallowed to overtake it," a police spokesperson said.He added that theambulance was allowed to proceed after the officer "ascertainedfacts".Over two lakh pilgrims have performed the Amarnath Yatra since theannual pilgrimage to the Himalayan cave shrine started on July 1. Officials saythis is the highest number to visit the Himalayan cave shrine during the firstforthright in the last four years. This yatra will conclude on August 15coinciding with the Shravan Purnima festival.