Amarnath Yatra concludes, more than 5 lakh devotees visit cave shrine
Srinagar, Aug 19 (PTI) More than a dozen Mountain Rescue Teams assisted thousands of pilgrims during this year’s Amarnath pilgrimage in the south Kashmir Himalayas, officials said on Monday, as the annual yatra concluded with more than 5.10 lakh pilgrims offering prayers at the cave shrine.
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, told PTI.
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.
More than 5.10 lakh pilgrims from across the country and abroad visited the cave shrine, housing a naturally formed ice lingam, during the yatra, which concluded with Chhari Mubarak — the silver-robed mace of Lord Shiva — reaching the cave shrine on Monday afternoon on the occasion of Shravan Purnima, coinciding with festival of Raksha Bandhan.
