Pilgrims return after Amarnath shrine visit

JAMMU - Scores of Amarnath pilgrims have started returning to Jammu after offering prayers at the holy cave shrine in Kashmir with many of them Sunday describing their experience as memorable.

Officials said nearly 12,000 pilgrims have visited the shrine, located the height of 13,500 feet above sea level.

“It was a great experience, fears did weigh on our minds for sometime before we reached Pahalgam on June 30, but once there we found an altogether different atmosphere. It did not seem to us as if anything was wrong,” recalled Ashwani Sharma, 36, a shopkeeper, a regular visitor to the shrine.

“This visit (to the shrine) will remain etched in my memory forever because it was a mix of fear and hospitality and reassurances by the locals,” he said, adding “They (locals) made our journey memorable.”

Pilgrims who paid their obeisance at the cave shrine had food at every stop from the community kitchens and found that they could stay in touch with their families back home as the phone services worked from Baltal and Chandanwari.

“For a moment, when we passed through Khannabal, we felt that things were bad,” Sharma said of the tense situation and curfew in Anantnag where three youth were killed in firing.

“The presence of the security personnel was reassuring,” he told told IANS Sunday evening.

The pilgrims who returned from the shrine in south Kashmir, found Kashmiri Muslim porters and other locals warm and helpful. “They were extra nice to us and repeatedly told us not to worry as if telling us that they were there to take care of us,” said Virender Gupta, another pilgrim who came back to Jammu Sunday evening.

He fondly remembered a young boy Mohammad Yusuf at Sheeshnag, one of the stopovers on the traditional route of Pahalgam-Amarnath shrine which passes through glaciers. “That boy told us that he was happy to see us in Kashmir, I was touched by his gesture,” said Gupta.

“We did not see any stone throwers. There was no trace of tension or fear on the minds of the pilgrims. They were happy on the successful conclusion of their pilgrimage,” Gupta said.

The pilgrimage to the Amarnath cave shrine that houses a natural ice stalagmite worshipped as an icon of the Hindu god Shiva began July 1. It will end Aug 25.