Says Record 5.12 Lakh Pilgrims Visited Cave Shrine

New Delhi: The pilgrimage to holy shrine of Amarnath was successfully completed and a record number of more than 5.12 lakh pilgrims visited it, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said on Wednesday.
The pilgrimage to the Amarnath shrine, located at a height of 3,880 metres in the south Kashmir Himalayas, started on June 29 and ended on August 19.
“The holy pilgrimage of Shri Amarnathji was successfully completed. This year, the holy pilgrimage lasted for 52 days, a record number of more than 5.12 lakh pilgrims visited Baba, which is the highest number in the last 12 years,” Shah wrote on ‘X’ in Hindi.
More than a dozen Mountain Rescue Teams assisted thousands of pilgrims during this year’s Amarnath pilgrimage.
The Mountain Rescue Teams (MRTs) — comprising personnel from the Jammu and Kashmir Police, State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) — was flagged off by Additional Director General of Police Vijay Kumar and deployed on the twin tracks leading to the 3,880-metre-high cave shrine nearly a week before the start of the 52-day pilgrimage on June 29.
While eight MRTs manned the critical spots on 48-kilometre traditional Pahalgam route in Anantnag district, five were positioned along the shorter but steeper 14-kilometre Baltal route in Ganderbal district.
“After two back-to-back recce of the twin routes, all 13 MRTs were stationed at the identified spots by June 24 and helped rescue more than 1,300 pilgrims in dire need, besides providing oxygen to 20,000 others during the yatra,” Inspector Ram Singh, the MRT in-charge, said.
Singh created history by becoming the first personnel from the Jammu and Kashmir Police to scale the world’s highest peak — Mount Everest — in May 2008.
He said the teams also helped a large number of local service providers and the security personnel who suffered from altitude sickness, braving life-threatening challenges in the snowbound, high-altitude tracks.
He said the MRTs also distributed over 20,000 raincoats free of cost among the pilgrims.

Agencies