The annual Amarnath yatra on Sunday began as the first batch of pilgrims left for the cave shrine in South Kashmir Himalayas from the base-camp in Jammu amid tight security.

The first batch consisting of 2,294 pilgrims was flagged off from Bagwati Nagar base-camp in Jammu around 0430 hours by the Minister for Tourism Nawang Rigzin Jora and Political Advisor to Chief Minister Devinder Rana.

Singing religious slogans, hymns and prayers, the pilgrims with holy bandannas tied to their fore-heads left for the Valley amid joy and happiness for their onward journey to Amarnath.

A total of 3.5 lakh pilgrims have already been registered for the yatra which will conclude on August 2 on Raksha Bandhan.

Geared up to ensure an incident-free and peaceful pilgrimage, CRPF has activated its security set-up and deployed 57 companies for security of the Yatra.