NEW DELHI: Indian Army has dispatched over five thousand additional troops for upcoming Amarnath Yatra preceded by Eid-ul-Fitr on June 26.
Army sources maintained that a total of five battalions have been moved, along with engineers, signals and Territorial Army units towards South Kashmir.
‘One battalion (newly 1,000 personnel) have been deployed on the Sonamarg-Baltal route to the Amarnath shrine in Jammu and Kashmir, while another will be positioned along the Pahalgam route. And remaining three battalions will take positioned along the Srinagar- Jammu highway north of Jawahar tunnel,” said an officer.
The officers said that the Army battalions will provide cover from a distance as the Jammu and Kashmir police is the lead agency for the security of the yatra.
Sources said that the annual pilgrimage has fortunately not seen any untoward incident in the last one decade or so, as militants had targeted the yatra last in 2003 and 2007. The event provides livelihood of more than one lakh local traders and pony owners of Jammu and Kashmir. Local businesses suffered great losses last year as the yatra was affected in the wake of mass protests after Burhan Wani was killed in July.