627 pilgrims leave for Amarnath shrine amid tight security

Jammu: Another batch of 627 pilgrims, on Monday left for the cave shrine of Amarnath in the south Kashmir Himalayas amidst tight security.

The batch comprising 486 men, 88 women, three children and 50 sadhus left in a motorcade of 16 vehicles from Bhagwati Nagar base camp here at 4:30 AM, a police official said.

The convoy has already reached Kud on the Jammu-Srinagar national highway.

With Monday's batch, so far, as many as 43,222 pilgrims have left from the Jammu base camp for the shrine. Nearly, three lakh pilgrims have paid obeisance at the

cave shrine of Amarnath.