Amarnath yatra suspended from Jammu due to law and order situation

World Saturday 08/July/2017 12:46 PM
By: Times News Service
Amarnath yatra suspended from Jammu due to law and order situation

Jammu: The Amarnath yatra was suspended from Jammu on Saturday due to law and order situation in the Kashmir Valley under curfew.
Authorities clamped curfew in three towns, including Tral in Kashmir, and imposed restrictions on the movement of people in the rest of the valley.
"The yatra has been been suspended from the Bhagwati Nagar base camp in Jammu due to law and order situation in the Kashmir Valley," a senior police officer said.
Police and paramilitary personnel were deployed in strength across Kashmir to handle any security challenge.
The number of pilgrims paying obeisance at the 3,880-metre high cave shrine of Amarnath in South Kashmir Himalayas has crossed the 100,000 mark as over 115,000 devotees had paied obeisance at the shrine.
The yatra is continuing from Baltal and Pahalgam base camps.
A total of 25,294 pilgrims and sadhus have left Jammu for Amarnath in eight batches since the yatra began.
Nine people including a security officer have died in the ongoing Amarnath pilgrimage.
"As many as 1,15,841 pilgrims have had paid obeisance at the cave shrine since the beginning of the yatra," an official spokesman said.
Amid multi-tier security, the 40-day long yatra began from Jammu on June 28 as the first batch of pilgrims left for twin base-camps of 3,888-metre high cave shrine in south Kashmir Himalayas.
The annual yatra in Kashmir began amid a terror threat, according to an intelligence warning which has prompted the authorities to mobilise the "highest level" of security measures, including satellite tracking system.