Scheduled to start next week after a break of two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the annual Amarnath Yatra is expected to witness large participation of devotees including sadhus and sadhvis who have started arriving here from different parts of the country.
Hundreds of the holy men and women are camping at the base camp Ram Mandir in the old city’s Purani Mandi area and are upbeat over the resumption of the pilgrimage to finally have ‘darshan’ of ‘Barfani Baba’, pointing to the naturally formed ice-shivlingam at the 3,880-metre holy cave of Amarnath in south Kashmir Himalayas.
The 43-day-long yatra is scheduled to start on June 30 from the twin routes -- traditional 48-km Nunwan in south Kashmir’s Pahalgam and 14-km shorter Baltal in central Kashmir’s Ganderbal. The first batch of pilgrims including sadhus will leave for the twin base camps of Kashmir from Bhagwati Nagar and Ram Mandir in Jammu, a day ahead of the start of the yatra.
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Unprecedented security arrangements have been put in place at the base camps and all along the route from Lakhanpur -- the gateway to J-K -- to the cave shrine to thwart any terror attack and ensure a peaceful yatra.
Staying in small groups inside a large hall at the temple complex and chanting praises of Lord Shiva like ‘Bham Bham Bhole’ and ‘Har Har Mahadev’, the sadhus who have renounced the worldly life are least bothered about the terror threat and said “it is a non-issue for us”.
