Amarnath Yatra begins as pilgrims set out for cave shrine in Kashmir
04/07/2025
Srinagar, Jul 3: The first batch of Amarnath Yatra pilgrims set off Thursday from the Baltal and Nunwan base camps towards the 3,880-metre-high cave shrine in the south Kashmir Himalayas, officials said.
The yatra started early in the morning from the traditional 48-km Nunwan-Pahalgam route and the 14-km Baltal route.
Pilgrims left from the Nunwan base camp in Pahalgam, in south Kashmir's Anantnag, & Baltal base camp in Sonamarg area of central Kashmir's Ganderbal, at the first light of the day, officials said.
Chants of 'Bam Bam Bhole' and 'Har Har Mahadev' heralded the march of the pilgrims', whose faces bore marks of happiness despite the arduous trek ahead, not to speak of the weather's vagaries.
"Baba has blessed us and there is tremendous excitement and enthusiasm around," a pilgrim from Gujarat said.
He urged the wary to come for the yatra without any fear and asserted there was no need to be scared with all the security around.
"There are very good arrangements. Security forces are deployed in large numbers. There is stringent security. Other arrangements also are up to the mark," another pilgrim said. Among the pilgrims was Union Minister Shobha Karandlaje, who took the Baltal route for the yatra. On Wednesday, the first batch of 5,892 yatris was flagged off from the yatra base camp in Jammu's Bhagwati Nagar by Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha.
The pilgrims reached the Kashmir Valley in the afternoon and received a rousing welcome from the administration and locals.
The devotees are on their way to the cave shrine, the site of an ice-formation widely revered as a shivling that lasts only for a brief period, before it melts.
Authorities have made elaborate security arrangements for the safety of the pilgrims, who visit the place which has been especially fraught since the April 22 gunning down of 26 men in Pahalgam by terrorists.
Thousands of security personnel from police and several paramilitary forces have been deployed, and aerial surveillance mounted, along the yatra route.
The 38-day pilgrimage will conclude on August 9.
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