Excelsior Correspondent
-Excelsior/Amin War
JAMMU, July 9: Eight Amarnath pilgrims including the driver were injured when the bus in which they were traveling turned turtle at Kali Bari near Mehta Palace in Kathua this afternoon.
The ill fated bus was carrying 50 Amarnath pilgrims, who had returned from the holy cave after performing darshan and were on their way to have pilgrimage of Jawala Ji in Himachal Pradesh. The pilgrims belonged to MP and UP States.
According to reports the bus was in fast speed and when the driver saw that a vehicle coming from opposite direction was set to cross the road, took a sharp turn with the result he lost control on the steering and bus turned turtle. Eight passengers including the driver of the bus were injured. The local people rushed to the spot and brought out the yatris from the bus. The injured were admitted in District Hospital Kathua while the driver who had received serious injuries was shifted to GMC Jammu.
The Kathua Police has registered a case. All other passengers in the bus were safe.
The injured have been identified as Kanta Prasad Gupta S/o Shambo Prashad Gupta of Samroli MP, Anchala Singh, W/o Sujjar Singh of Varanasi UP, Jia Ram S/o Shallu Ram of Samroli MP, Bano Lal Gupta S/o Badri Prasad of Varanasi UP, Kanta Singh, W/o Sanjay Singh of Varanasi UP, Piaso Ram S/o Sulesh Ram of Samroli MP, Ashok Kumar Jain, S/o Manga of Samroli UP and driver Bakhtawar S/o Mohammed Khan of Kote Bhalwal, Jammu.
Meanwhile, 12,345 devotees paid the obeisance in holy cave of Swami Amarnath on day 12 of darshan today. With this a total of 1,55,855 pilgrims have performed darshan of Icy Lingam since the 45 day yatra started on June 28.
This was stated by an official spokesman here today. He said the yatra has picked up after the opening of traditional Pahalgam Chandanwari track for pilgrims on July 2.
The Spokesman said the clear weather in the morning enabled the camp directors of the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB) to allow the yatris camping at Baltal and Nunwan base camps to move towards the holy cave.
Spokesman said the quota for on spot registration for each route is released daily, on the basis of the trend of arrival of yatris at Baltal and Chandanwari and also keeping in view the number of pilgrims registered earlier by 426 bank branches.
He said the Board had provided advance registration arrangements through 426 branches of Punjab National Bank (PNB), Jammu and Kashmir Bank (JKB) and Yes Bank enabling the yatris to register themselves for yatra 2014. This advance registration facility was made available for March 1 this year onwards and as of now 2,41,464 pilgrims have received advance registration.
Meanwhile, one yatri died at holy cave late tonight but his identity was not ascertained so far. With this the number of pilgrims who died during ongoing yatra has mounted to 16.
The spokesman said 5248 pilgrims left from Nunwan to holy cave early this morning while 6052 left via Baltal track to holy cave. Out of them 5026 left by foot while 1026 left by chopper.
He said 1927 pilgrims left from Bhagwati Nagar Yatri Niwas for holy cave early this morning under tight security. They included 1345 male, 363 female, 20 children and 199 Sadhus.
All the pilgrims had reached to their destinations in Kashmir valley when last reports came, spokesman said.
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