SRINAGAR: It is Friday (July 11, 2025) and the sun has been strong since dawn. It is already 8.30 in the morning. A journalist friend had cautioned me against a delayed start for covering the Amarnath yatra arrangements at Pahalgam.
So, having taken an early start, I walk to Ghanta Ghar and board the cab at Taxi Stand No. 2 in Srinagar for Anantnag. Calculating the friend’s warning about heavy security drills, I presumed, I would be in Pahalgam by 12:00 Noon.
I am lucky enough to find one seat in what would be the last cab till late afternoon today. “Jump in the back and lock the door, we are late already, the convoys would be running,” the 72-year-old taxi driver, Bashir Ahmad, tells me as he removes pressure from the clutch and pushes the accelerator.
The Barricades and a Halt Every 10 Minutes
We drive nearly eight kilometers before the civilian traffic is halted near Lasjan in Srinagar at 9:37 AM. A convoy carrying pilgrims toward south Kashmir are given a pass while being escorted by a couple of CRPF trucks, followed by a light armoured personnel carrier (APC), and a green bulletproof SUV of the Army as a tail-end Charlie, which passes at 09:47 AM.
Civilian traffic is signaled to move.
Bashir turns on the ignition and we turn left from Lasjan bypass behind the convoy also toward south Kashmir along the new NH44. At 9:48 AM, the civilian traffic is stopped again.
At 9:57 AM, the CRPF personnel push aside the steel-made white coated barricading fence and allow the civilian movement.
“Earlier there weren’t barricades,” remarks 23-year-old Adnan Zubair, a second-year student at KGP Polytechnic. Zubair is going to his home in Seer Hamdan in Anantnag, some 70-kms away from Srinagar, to spend the weekend.
Just as Zubair finishes speaking, civilian traffic is halted again at 9:58 AM near Kandizal Galandar. It’s been nearly two hours on the road, and we have only covered 22 kms.
At 10:00 AM, civilian traffic is gestured to move again.
Since we left Srinagar, Bashir Ahmad put the car in fifth gear for the second time. But at 10:05 AM, civilian traffic is stopped again near Birla School, Galandar.
Three minutes later, a gesture is made with a red flag to proceed. Then four minutes later at 10:12 AM near Barsoo, Pulwama vehicles are stopped again.
Those Left Pleading
Over eighty vehicles are waiting for a signal to proceed. One of them is driven by a doctor rushing to the hospital for work. He shows his identity card to the CRPF personnel but is refused to let go.
There are also good carriers, who fear their load will perish if they remain stuck for too long.
As the vehicles remain stuck, a kid in a black shirt hangs his head out of the window of a car. He appears ill, probably nauseating. His father is out requesting the CRPF officer to allow them to go as his child is suffering.
“Let them (pilgrims) move ahead, then you can go,” a smirking CRPF gently tells the anxious father.
This is not an isolated incident. On July 13, Member of Parliament and a senior leader of the ruling party Aga Ruhullah Mehdi shared a video of a man pleading to the security forces along NH44 to let them pass while his son was suffering from seizures inside the car.
The video shows that when they are prohibited to move, a woman who is also in the car with the child alights and tries to confront the CRPF personnel. “Go call whoever you want, our son is dying, let us move,” the woman is seen screaming at the CRPF man.
“Hear how a mother pleads to this CRPF man to let her take her child to the hospital. The CRPF man unfazed instead calls for more backup alleging ‘Dhaka Mukki’,” Mehdi wrote in the video's caption.
Former J&K Chief Minister and PDP patron Mehbooba Mufti also shared the video and wrote on X, “While Kashmiris have always wholeheartedly welcomed Yatris and we understand security concerns, such incidents can prove fatal.”
“These security restrictions cannot come at the expense of people’s lives,” Mufti added.
Back to our journey, the civilian traffic is allowed to move at 10:20 AM, the anxious father gets back in the car. Gestures to halt are now made at 10:29 AM along the NH44 near Awantipora.
On the opposite lower side, on the road which snakes through lush green paddy fields and intersects the highway from below and goes to Padgampora, an ambulance is also among the halted vehicles.
“Do we only have to stop? We are stuck in an unending misery,” remarks a driver of another vehicle as he stops by the side and pours water on his head and face amidst the scorching heat.
At 11:50 AM, we enter the Anantnag district. It’s heavily securitised. In private pickup trucks, inside newly established bunkers, on shop rooftops, and in crowded market streets, security forces are vigilant.
The cab drops all the passengers inside the Anantnag Bus Stop. I quickly get into another cab destined for Pahalgam. It starts rolling onward within two minutes.
Hoardings & Diversions
Its driver, Bakshi, is a resident of Mattan Anantnag, who has been driving a cab for the last five years and transporting pilgrims in the last two years.
“I take pilgrims from Nunwan Base Camp to Chandanwari at dawn and finish by 11:00 AM, then I ferry passengers from Anantnag stand to Pahalgam,” says Bakshi.
Hoardings displaying pictures of PM Modi, J&K LG Manoj Sinha, and the UT’s Chief Minister Omar Abdullah alongside a welcome message for the pilgrims appear frequently along the Pahalgam route. Abdullah is the only one smiling on every hoarding.
We cross Pahalgam toll post at 12:56 PM. The civilian traffic is then diverted through Sarbal near Darul-uloom Zainul Islam, where the main road leading to Pahalgam is closed using concertina wires.
Locals and non-pilgrim tourists need to take the Sarbal route to reach Pahalgam town. This year, a checkpoint to scan people and their belongings was established in Sarbal.
This is a narrow hilly road, and amid traffic snarls, we reach the checkpoint at 01:36 PM.
Checking is completed, and at 1:54 PM, we are allowed to move towards the Pahalgam town, which we enter at 2:26 PM.
If I hadn’t taken notes, I would have lost the count of times we had to stop during the about 90-kilometres journey from Srinagar to Pahalgam.
Hotels, tea-stalls and security apparatus
The hotel I am checking-in has only one room available. All the rest, including the kitchen, are accommodating security officials, Fayaz, the hotel’s manager tells me.
“Officers have their own butlers,” remarks a cop as he puts on his BP vest while another cop hands him his weapon in the corridor to the reception of the hotel.
Outside near the petrol pump, a concertina wire is spread on the main road. No vehicle is allowed to exit from here, only vehicles with permits to pick up pilgrims from Nunwan Base camp are allowed to move, and that only during dawn when pilgrims need to be dropped at Chandanwari.
At least 2,000 local cabs are taking pilgrims from Nunwan Base Camp to Chandanwari, says Bakshi, a 35-year-old cab driver.
“They (the pilgrims) are charged a fixed rate of Rs 200 per head,” Bakshi says after his vehicle papers are confiscated by a traffic police official, who takes the papers as a guarantee that Bakshi won’t drive beyond the petrol pump. Before that, he had to promise that he only needs to fill gas in his tank and will not go beyond.
“Till now, one lakh and thirty thousand people have completed the pilgrimage. Last year, during the same period, there were many more,” Bakshi says.
I walk around the market and go down to the parking behind the petrol pump to have tea. But to my surprise, the stall owners are nowhere to be seen, and there are buses parked everywhere.
There is just one, on the left corner.
As the sole stall-owner, Abrar, prepares tea for me, I hear a voice calling me from behind. It almost gets lost in the sound of wind and the gushing river nearby.
“What are you doing here,” a cop, with a name plate that gives away his name as ‘Iqbal’ asks me.
“I’m a journalist, and here to report. Where are the rest of the stall owners?” I ask him.
“Nobody is allowed here, not even a local to stand here. This is this year’s security protocol. We have allowed one stall so we (cops) can have tea,” says Iqbal, who has been posted in Pahalgam since the start of the Yatra this year.
Since it commenced on July 3, over 3 lakh people have undertaken the pilgrimage. The 38-day Yatra will conclude on August 9.
After checking my credentials, Iqbal lets me have the tea, requesting that I leave immediately after finishing it.
I comply.
There are men in sky blue shirts and black pants present across Pahalgam town. Many of them, locals say, are from the J&K Police.
Irshad, a new recruit in the police tells me, “There are men from National Investigation Agency (NIA) and Counter Intelligence Kashmir in civvies spread across the town.
(Part-II and Part-III of this report to follow)
Have you liked the news article?