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| Decline in Amarnath pilgrims after grenade attack | | |
JAMMU: The number of Amarnath pilgrims arriving in Jammu from different parts of the country has witnessed a decline since the grenade attack on Tuesday which claimed the life of a pilgrim and injured several others, officials said on Thursday.
The number of pilgrims on Thursday was the least this season as only 943 left for the holy cave, while on Wednesday, a batch of 1428 pilgrims had left. On an average, a batch of 2000-2,500 pilgrims leaves from here every day.
Thursday's batch, including 159 women and 146 sadhus , left in a fleet of 30 vehicles from the base camp here early morning amid tight security, officials said. Security has also been beefed up from Jammu to camp destinations in south Kashmir valley following grenade blast at Baltal camp on Tuesday evening.
Apart from the grenade attack, officials said another reason for decrease in the numbers could be the melting of lingam. With Thursday's batch, about 35,132 pilgrims have left from here for the cave shrine since the commencement of yatra on July 2.
Though the yatra was to start from June 30, the authorities had to defer it till July 2 due to landslides on the National Highway following rains, officials said.
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