Amarnath pilgrims figure crosses 2.40 lakh

KT NEWS SERVICE SRINAGAR, Aug 6 : With Amarnath yatra entering into 22nd day, there is no let up in pilgrims traffic with thousands of devotees descending on Kashmir Valley everyday.

Surpassing all previous records, as many as 2,37,420 pilgrims have arrived here till last evening for the annual yatra, officially opened for 45 days since July 15.

These include over 7,500 pilgrims who came yesterday.

Of them, over 2.28 lakh yatris have had darshan in the Cave Shrine.

Today, another batch of 3,461 yatris left Jammu this morning.

According to reports, four more pilgrims passed away raising the toll to 46 since July 12.

One yatri Gurdas Ghosh of Kolkata died due to failure of lungs at Srinagar hospital yesterday while two pilgrims namely Ram Nath Sharma, 57 years of Meerut, Utter Pradesh and Megh Nath Sinha, 71 years of Bantra, Howra (West Bangal) died natural death at Pissu top.

Another pilgrim Urmilla Jain of Sheikh Pora Bihar died at SMHS hospital Srinagar yesterday.