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| Attacks fail to scare away yatries | | |
ET REPORTER
Jammu, July 20: The recurring attacks on the pious Amarnath Yatra to scare away the pilgrims have failed to effect the enthusiasm of devotees who are still continuing to pour into thousands every day to pay obeisance at the world famous Himalayan cave shrine in south Kashmir.
The attacks on the yatra, on route or around base camp are aimed at creating a religious wedge and scare away the pilgrims, believe the security experts. However, despite occurrence of such attacks since 2000 neither the morale of devotees have dropped and nor the fundamentalists have been able to create the religious wedge.
Bothering little about the grenade attacks or the propaganda, the number of pilgrims who reached today the base camp for onward journey have again increased. The 18th batch of pilgrims which left Jammu this morning for the cave shrine had 1259 pilgrims drawn from different parts of the country.
The batch, including 683 men, 306 women, 36 children and 234 sadhus, left in a fleet of 34 vehicles from the base camp of MAM stadium here around 0600 hrs amid tight security, officials said.
The fleet of vehicles carrying pilgrims crossed Kud around 1000 hrs and are expected to reach the base camps at Nunwan in Pahalgam and Baltal in the Kashmir valley by evening.
Only 943 pilgrims left for the shrine, at a height of 3,880 metre, on Thursday, they said.
Security arrangements have also been strengthened along the highway from here to the base camps following the Baltal camp on Tuesday evening in which one pilgrim was killed and 17 others injured.
With Friday's batch, about 36,391 yatris have left from here for the cave shrine since the commencement of the yatra on July two.
Though the yatra was to start from June 30, the authorities had deferred it as the national highway was blocked due to landslides following rains.
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