Pilgrimage resumes, 4K leave for Amarnath shrine

Our Correspondent

Jammu, July 11

The movement of pilgrims from Jammu to the Amarnath cave shrine in Kashmir was allowed on Monday.

A fresh batch of 4,026 pilgrims, including 641 women, 13 children and 180 seers, left the Bhagwati Nagar base camp in Jammu for Baltal and Nunwan camps in Kashmir from where the Yatra towards the cave shrine starts.

The pilgrimage was halted after a cloudburst near the shrine on Friday. The flash floods and the landslide had claimed several lives. Sixteen bodies have been found while around 40 pilgrims are still missing. The landslips had blocked the Yatra route from Kashmir base camps due to which pilgrims were made to halt in Jammu.

While the district administration had asked the pilgrims till yesterday afternoon to avoid coming to Bhagwati Nagar, an announcement at around 11 pm on Twitter invited them to the camp. “All pilgrims with Yatra dates of July 11 or before that are requested to move to Yatri Niwas in Bhagwati Nagar,” a tweet of Deputy Commissioner Avny Lavasa on Sunday night stated.

An official of the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB) informed that at around 3.30 am on Monday, pilgrims in two batches left for the Baltal and Nunwan camps in 35 and 75 vehicles, respectively, under the cover of heavily armed security men.

Meanwhile, the Army has constructed a makeshift staircase outside the holy cave. The path leading to the cave shrine was damaged due to the landslides. "In view of the Yatra resuming from Pahalgam axis today, a stairway towards approach to the holy cave has been made overnight," Army's Chinar Corps tweeted.

The annual 43-day yatra had commenced on June 30. So far, over 1.13 lakh pilgrims have offered prayers at the cave shrine, housing the naturally formed ice-shivlingam, officials said. With this, a total of 69,561 pilgrims have left from the Bhagwati Nagar base camp for the Valley since June 29, the day the first batch of pilgrims was flagged off by Lieutenant-Governor Manoj Sinha. The yatra is scheduled to end on August 11. (With PTI inputs)

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