Twenty two Amarnath pilgrims were injured in a grenade attack in Pahalgam in south Kashmir on Saturday.
The incident occurred at around 1:15 pm when the pilgrims, mostly sadhus, were having lunch in the compound of a local Gurduwara. Police said that an unidentified militant threw a grenade towards them which exploded with a big bang.

Most of the injured have been admitted to the Pahalgam hospital. Nine seriously injured were referred to the Anantnag district hospital. Doctors in Anantnag referred six injured for further treatment hospitals in Srinagar.
Kuldeep Singh of Samba-Jammu is one of the injured. “I was having lunch in the compound of Gurduwara on Saturday morning. Suddenly an explosion occurred. There was a deafening sound and huge volume of smoke and dust.  Splinters hit different parts of my body and I started bleeding profusely. I ran a few yards but fell down due to pain,” he said.

Kuldeep said after 15 minutes, policemen took him to the hospital. It was Kuldeep’s first pilgrimage.
Gurmeet Das, a sadhu from Punjab, said he had reached Pahalgam a few days ago and was to leave for the pilgrimage on Sunday. He was a victim of the grenade attack as well.

Doctors attending the injured said many suffer from multiple injuries.

This is the second grenade attack on Amarnath pilgrims this year. A similar attack was carried out at Baltal, in which a local shopkeeper was killed and labourers and pilgrims were injured.

Prior to the attack, a batch of 1,000 pilgrims had left from Pahalgam for the holy cave of Amarnath. Nearly 1.54 lakh devotees performed  the yatra this year.