Amarnath yatra began on Friday in the fear of the recent terror attacks in the state, with Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh flagging off the first batch of 1,282 pilgrims for the cave shrine in South Kashmir Himalayas.

Drones are used for aerial security of the base camp at Bhagwati Nagar area of Jammu city for the first time and at least 20,000 security personnel have been deployed along the two routes.  

The pilgrims, who reached the Bhagwati Nagar base camp from various parts of the country, have left for their onward journey to Pahalgam and Baltal base camps,  chanting ‘Bam Bam Bholay’ and singing bhajans. From there they will proceed to the cave shrine, located at a height of 3,888 metre, where they will reach on Saturday.

The state is living under increased terror of attacks on security forces in the Kashmir Valley. It posed a huge challenge to the security apparatus in ensuring a peaceful and incident—free Amarnath yatra.

As many as 12,500 central paramilitary personnel and 8,000 state policemen will be deployed along the two routes in South Kashmir’s Pahalgam and Northeast Sonamarg. Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh will be arriving on a two-day visit to review the situation and take stock of security measures for the Amarnath yatra, in Kashmir and is likely to be a part of “Pratham Darshan” of ‘ice lingam’ at the shrine.

The Deputy Chief Minister said that adequate security forces have been sent by the central government to ensure an incident-free yatra.

By Prakriti Neogi