Thirty-six Amarnath pilgrims sustained minor injuries when a bus that was part of a pilgrimage convoy from Jammu to Pahalgam in Kashmir Valley allegedly rammed into four other buses along the national highway in Ramban district on Saturday morning.
The injured people were part of the fourth batch of 5,196 pilgrims who had left the base camp in Bhagwati Nagar in two separate convoys – one proceeding to Pahalgam and another to Baltal in the Valley, officials said.
The police said the incident took place at Chanderkote, adding that failure of brakes on the last bus in the convoy is believed to have caused the accident. They said this bus hit the four other buses that were at the langar site.
Officials from the district administration and the police, who were already present at the spot, rushed the injured to a hospital, from where they were discharged after first aid.
The pilgrims were later shifted to other buses and the Amarnath yatra convoy resumed its journey, sources added.
This year’s annual Amarnath Yatra started on Thursday. The first batch of yatris for the 38-day pilgrimage to the shrine was flagged off from the yatra’s base camp in Bhagwati Nagar by Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha. Last year, the yatra recorded the highest footfall in 12 years, with over 5 lakh devotees visiting the holy cave.
