Five army personnel were killed and six injured on Monday when terrorists ambushed their vehicle in the remote Machedi area of Jammu and Kashmir's Kathua district, officials said.
Additional police force had been rushed to the Sabarimala hill shrine in Kerala in view of the heavy rush of pilgrims, Kerala Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan said.
They will be among 25,000 pilgrims from the world over visiting Pakistan to commemorate the 539th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak in Talwandi, now called Nankana Sahib.
The condition of three of the injured is stated to be serious.
Travancore Devaswom Board, which manages the shrine, said revenue collection on the opening day registered a growth of Rs 1.28 crore compared to last year.
It was another black January 14 for Sabarimala pilgrims with Friday night's stampede tragedy being the third in the history of the hill shrine. The first tragedy shook the shrine on January 14, 1952, when it was gutted in a fire caused by an explosion of fireworks, leaving 66 Ayyappa pilgrims dead. The present shrine was rebuilt in place of the older one. In 1998, 52 pilgrims died following a stampede at Pampa, which also occurred on January 14 after 'Makara Jyothi' darshan.
As many as 73 people have been killed and 170 injured in twin blasts near the burial site of Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani in the Iranian city of Kerman on Wednesday in what officials called a terror attack, according to state media, as per CNN.
The Yatri Niwas Bhagwati Nagar in Jammu serves as the main base camp for the pilgrims from across the country.
About 124 pilgrims on a two day visit arrived at the sacred Katas Raj temples in Chakwal district near capital Islamabad on Friday and were overwhelmed by the official reception.
'The BJP is not as mighty a political force in Odisha as it is made out to be.'
Kiran Bala, who went to Pakistan to attend the Baisakhi festival, changed her name to Amna Bibi.
With this batch as many as 53,995 yatris from different parts of the country have left for the cave shrine since the commencement of yatra on June 10.
A pilgrim, identified as Muhammad, said, "We had to go to the Holy Haram early in the morning without a wash. We thought our complaints would be attended to by the time we returned. But we found that our complaints fell on deaf ears."
Sources told rediff.com over telephone that the pilgrims were sitting on the platform of the lorry, which was filled with sand. Most of the pilgrims had died owing to suffocation as the sand in the platform of the lorry had fallen over the pilgrims once the lorry toppled.
Leader of the Opposition Sushma Swaraj on Tuesday spoke to Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde and urged him to evacuate pilgrims stranded in Uttarkashi region of Uttarakhand in the aftermath of flash floods there.
After being delayed by landslides for two days, pilgrims undertaking the Amarnath yatra resumed their journey on Saturday.
Five pilgrims, including two women, died enroute the 3,880 metre high holy cave shrine of Amarnath in south Kashmir Himalayas, taking the toll during the ongoing yatra to six, police said on Wednesday.
January 22, 2024 has passed into history. Scenes from a day of religious fervour in many parts of India.
The pilgrims have brought with them an expensive velvet chadar for making a collective offering at the tomb of the Sufi saint.
All the five passengers were safe.
Twenty-four pilgrims were killed and 75 others injured when the truck they were travelling in over turned in Rampur Jhajjhar village along the Punjab-Himachal Pradesh border in the wee hours on Tuesday.
Sheikh Salim Gafur has been selected for the honour as he displayed some rare grit and bravery and continued to drive the bus of the Amarnath pilgrims, which came under attack by the terrorists on July 10, 2017, in Jammu and Kashmir, a home ministry official said.
New Zealand Sikh Society spokesman Daljit Singh, who was in contact with some of the missing pilgrims, said the Indians claimed to be victims of an immigration racket and were charged thousands of dollars by an agent in India on a false promise of permanent residency.
Rescue of pilgrims stranded in Badrinath came to an end on Tuesday with about 150 of them being safely evacuated even as the administration struggled with the task of supplying relief to remote parts of Uttarakhand where foodgrain shortage has been reported in 170 villages.
Pakistan on Friday summoned Indian Deputy High Commissioner Gopal Baghlay to lodge a protest over denial of visas to some 500 Pakistani pilgrims to visit the famed shrine of Hazrat Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti at Ajmer.
President Pratibha Patil on Saturday condoled the death of Sabarimala pilgrims in a stampede at Pullumedu in Kerala's Idukki district.In a letter to the Kerala chief minister and governor, she expressed grief over the tragedy.Patil wished a speedy recovery to all those injured in the incident that took place on Friday night. Over 100 pilgrims returning from the shrine were killed and 50 others injured in the stampede.
The electoral battle in Varanasi, according to locals and political experts, is not about whether the PM will win for a third successive occasion, but if he will increase his share of the votes polled and his win margin.
Citing the example of last year, he said many pilgrims who came for the yatra from rural areas of Uttar Pradesh had to return from Rishikesh and Haridwar as they had not registered in advance for it.
The first batch comprising 1,160 Amarnath yatris was on Friday flagged off by the state tourism minister from Jammu base camp to the holy cave shrine in south Kashmir Himalayas.
Modi brought up the emotive issue of the gurdwara in Kartarpur Sahib, a place sacred to Sikhs as Guru Nanak Dev spent the last years of his life there, and blamed the Congress for country's partition, saying they did it for sake of power.
Two Amarnath pilgrims died and 23 people, including 5 pilgrims, were injured in separate mishaps in Jammu region.
Toeing the Centre's line for cordial ties with Sri Lanka, key United Progressive Alliance ally Dravida Munettra Kazhagam chief M Karunanidhi on Wednesday virtually blamed Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa for attacks on Lankan pilgrims, saying her action in sending back a football team from that country had led to the incidents.
The police claimed the bus driver had violated rules for the pilgrimage.
A day after Kedarnath, the portals of famous Himalayan shrine of Badrinath were reopened on Monday for pilgrims after a gap of six months.
Police said the tragedy was caused by loosening of the stones by recent rains and high velocity winds near the holy cave.
There is no use of the BJP targeting the likes of Mamata Banerjee and M K Stalin, directly by the party's political bosses, both in Delhi and the respective state capitals, or even using the Raj Bhavans to fire those salvos from. Successive elections have proved that it's counter-productive, if anything. But the BJP is yet to understand it, acknowledge it, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
The accident occurred late on Friday, district collector K V Muralidharan said.
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