What happened
The Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board sent roughly 20 tonnes of accumulated devotee silver offerings to a government mint for melting and storage, expecting to recover silver worth close to Rs 500-550 crore. The assay came back showing only about 5-6% of the haul was genuine silver, with the rest largely cadmium and iron dressed up to pass as the real thing, cutting the actual recoverable value to roughly Rs 30 crore. Suspicion has fallen on jewellers and vendors along the pilgrimage route who allegedly sold devotees silver-look-alike trinkets for decades, all of which sailed straight past the shrine's own storage and counting process. A complaint filed in May 2026 over cheating and criminal breach of trust went nowhere until a Jammu court, clearly out of patience, ordered the Crime Branch's own inquiry officer to show up in person on July 15 with the complete case file.