As many as 25,956 devotees embarked on arduous journey through rugged mountains to pay obeisance to Shivlingam at the 12,729-foot-high Amarnath cave-shrine on the first day of the two-and-half-month long yatra on Wednesday.
The annual pilgrimage commenced with governor N.N.Vohra’s attending “Prathan Puja” or the first prayer held at the Sanctum Sanctorum amidst chanting of Vedic mantras. The governor, who is also the chairman of the Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board (SASB), was accompanied by his wife Usha, and the CEO of the board R. K. Goyal. They flew in their by a helicopter.
Earlier, 19,498 devotees began their journey to Amarnath by foot or on ponyback from Baltal base-camp, 96-km north of Srinagar, and another 6,458 from Pahalgam, 100-km southeast of the summer capital. Most of the pilgrims who took shorter but steep Baltal route are reported to have reached the cave-shrine by late evening, while as those walking along the Pahalgam route are expected to reach there by Thursday morning after their night stay at Sheshnag or Panjtarni halting places. Meanwhile, the second batch of 2,185 pilgrims on Wednesday morning left from Bagwatinagar base camp in Jammu for the Valley but as already reported thousands of intending pilgrims have already reached Srinagar, Pahalgam and Baltal on their own and are waiting to be allowed to proceed towards Amarnath.
At Chandanwari, about 16-km from Pahalgam, which is the starting point of the mountain track, groups of pilgrims staged a protest demonstration against poor transport facilities available to them to reach there from Pahalgam.