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Fresh batch of 3398 Amarnath pilgrims leave Jammu

KT NEWS SERVICE. Dated: 7/16/2017 9:07:40 AM

SRINAGAR/JAMMU, Jul 15: On the 17th day of the Amarnath pilgrimage today, 8,638 pilgrims paid obeisance at the holy cave shrine in the South Kashmir.
Cumulatively, since the beginning of the pilgrimage, 1, 95,491 pilgrims paid obeisance at the holy cave.
Earlier a fresh batch of 3,398 Shri Amarnath pilgrims today left from Yatri Niwas base camp here for the holy cave shrine in South Kashmir.
Chanting religious slogans, 3,398 pilgrims this early morning left in a cavalcade of 132 vehicles.
The yatris comprised 2535 male, 758 females, 5 transgender and 100 Sadhus.
Pilgrims left for Pahalgam and Baltal to perform the pilgrimage in 132 vehicles, including 63 buses and 69 light motor vehicles.
“The Yatra is smoothly heading on the highway,” a police official here said
In the meanwhile, a fifty eight-year-old woman pilgrim identified as Nirmala Patel, wife of Shahi Patel, resident of Ranipora, Karnataka suffered a massive heart attack at Baltal base camp.
With the death of one more pilgrim from Karnataka, the toll during the annual pilgrimage so far has risen to 23 since the commencement of the 40 day-yatra to holy Amarnath cave shrine on June 29.
According to an official dealing with the yatra, Nirmala Patel was immediately rushed to nearby medical camp where doctors declared her brought dead.
With this, a total of 17 yatris have died so far. Two of them died due to accidents caused by shooting stones fall and an accident while the other 15 passed away due to medical reasons.
Seven pilgrims were killed and 19 others injured in a militant attack on their vehicle at Anantnag on Srinagar-Jammu national highway recently.
One pilgrim from Telangana died due to a cylinder blast at Veesu-Mir Bazar, Qazigund, outside the Yatra area and two people, an ITBP personnel and an ISRO technician, died before the start of Yatra due to cardiac failure.