Amarnath Yatra 2025: Amarnath Yatra begins amid heavy security cover, pilgrims leave from base camps

Indian Express

21 hours ago

Amarnath Yatra 2025: The annual Amarnath Yatra started Thursday with the first batch of pilgrims starting off from the Baltal and Nunwan base camps, and the second batch setting off from Jammu. A total of 5,880 pilgrims are expected to be visiting the shrine as part of the first batch.
The 38-day pilgrimage to the 3,880-metre shrine in the south Kashmir Himalayas began from both the traditional 48-km Nunwan-Pahalgam route in Anantnag district as well as the 14-km, but steeper, Baltal route in Ganderbal district.
The batches of pilgrims left from the Nunwan base camp in Pahalgam, in south Kashmir's Anantnag, and Baltal base camp in Sonamarg area of central Kashmir's Ganderbal at the first light of the day, the officials said.
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.
They will pay obeisance at the cave shrine, which houses the naturally occurring ice-lingam formation.
This year's Amarnath pilgrimage comes about two months after a terror attack in Pahalgam killed 26 civilians, mostly tourists. As such, a stringent multi-tier security cover was in place on Wednesday as the convoy moved on the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway.
'The yatra is being monitored 24×7 from the Integrated Command and Control Centre at Raj Bhawan and the Police Control Room, while an RFID-based tracking system has also been put in place to monitor movement of yatris and their convoy on a real time basis,' officials had told The Indian Express.
Last year, the yatra had recorded the highest footfall in 12 years, with over five lakh devotees visiting the holy cave.