The Army on July 1 assured round-the-clock monitoring and special surveillance squads for the Amarnath routes, as hundreds of pilgrims started hiking through two arduous mountain routes in south and central Kashmir on their way to the Amarnath cave shrine. The pilgrimage takes 62-days.
Yatra opens with prayer
The yatra was thrown open after an ‘Aarti’ performed at the Amarnath cave shrine at an altitude of 14000 feet. Raising slogans, ‘Bham Bham Bole’, hundreds of pilgrims left their base camps in Anantnag’s Pahalgam and Ganderbal’s Sonamarg to walk towards the shrine. Around 3488 pilgrims have assembled in Valley base camps for ‘darshan’.
