JAMMU, July 25 — The annual Shri Amarnath Ji Yatra got back underway on Saturday after a six-day hiatus caused by persistent heavy rain and inclement weather across Jammu and Kashmir. A fresh batch of 6,269 pilgrims—including 1,470 women, 25 children, and 54 Sadhus—departed from the Bhagwati Nagar Yatri Niwas base camp in Jammu around 2:40 AM, traveling in a heavily guarded convoy of 223 vehicles headed directly for the Baltal base camp in Ganderbal district. Officials confirmed that due to ongoing route assessments, the entire 18th batch was directed through the shorter 14-km Baltal axis, with no convoy dispatched along the traditional 48-km Pahalgam route in Anantnag.
The suspension, originally enacted on July 19 as a precautionary measure to ensure safety along the routes to the 3,880-metre-high holy cave shrine, was lifted following significant weather improvements and the reopening of the crucial Jammu-Srinagar National Highway, which had previously been blocked by landslides and shooting stones along the Udhampur-Ramban stretch.
First flagged off by Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha on July 2, this year’s pilgrimage has already seen nearly four lakh devotees pay obeisance at the shrine, with roughly 1.20 lakh departing from the Jammu base camp under multi-layered security. The 52-day pilgrimage is scheduled to officially conclude on August 28, coinciding with Raksha Bandhan.