129 Amarnath yatris from Karnataka moved out safely to Srinagar

BENGALURU: The disaster management department has safely moved out all 129 Amarnath Yatra pilgrims from Karnataka who were stuck at the Panchatarani military camp due to inclement weather.

All the 129 people from the state have been shifted to Neelagranth and from there, they will be taken to Srinagar by road from where arrangements will be made for their travel to different parts of the state. Officials of the disaster management department are camping in Kashmir for the rescue operations.

Some of the pilgrims from Davanagere.

Meanwhile, nine people from Davanagere who had travelled to Amarnath on June 30 are safe. They include Geeta, Chandrika, Pushpa, Usha, Basavaraj, Prashanth, Gangadhara Swamy, Veeresh and Sambashivaiah. After darshan at the cave shrine on July 6, they had returned to the base camp after which the weather turned inclement.

A group from Dharwad made their own arrangements to reach Srinagar.

Five pilgrims from Dharwad, who were stuck at the Panchatarini camp for four days, managed to make their own arrangements to reach Srinagar by helicopter as they did not get any help from the state officials. Rakesh Nazare, Vitthal Bachagundi, Harish Salunke, Nagaraj and Madivalappa Kotabagi paid Rs 4,200 each for a helicopter ride to Srinagar.

The group had left Dharwad on July 3 and had darshan on July 6. During their return, the yatra route was closed due to heavy rain and snowfall.

The family from Kalaburagi resumed their trek on Monday.

With the Yatra resuming today, a family from Kalaburagi, which was stuck at Pahalgam, was shifted to Neelghat by helicopter from where they resumed their trek to Amarnath. Ramachandra Rao and family had taken shelter at Pahalgam on Sunday and resumed their yatra on Monday.