12K pilgrims offer prayers at Amarnath

Over 12,000 pilgrims offered prayers at the cave shrine of Amarnath in south Kashmir as the pilgrimage began on Thursday, officials said, with pilgrims setting off from the twin base camps in Baltal and Nunwan towards the 3880-metre-high shrine in the Himalayas, which houses a naturally formed ice stalagmite, representing Lord Shiva.

- Ashiq Hussain

The yatra started early morning from the twin tracks, the traditional 48km Nunwan-Pahalgam route and the 14km Baltal route.

“A total of 12,348 pilgrims paid obeisance at the 3,880-metre high cave shrine on the first day of the pilgrimage,” they said.

The pilgrims included 9,181 male pilgrims, 2,223 female pilgrims, 99 children, 122 sadhus, seven sadhvis and eight transgenders, news agency PTI quoted officials as saying.

The officials further said that they had not expected such high number of pilgrims to attend the pilgrimage on the very first day, especially in the wake of the deadly Pahalgam terror attack on April 22 this year.

Amid robust security arrangements in the wake of the attack in which 26 people were killed, officials, including Kashmir divisional commissioner Vijay Kumar Bidhuri, flagged off the yatra at the first light of the day, as religious slogans chanted by the pilgrims filled the air.