The devotees comprising 3,009 men, 821 women, 145 children apart from 293 Sadhus left for the 3888-metre high shrine in a cavalcade of 156 vehicles from the Bhagwati Nagar base camp in Jammu at around 5 AM, police said.
The convoy is reported to have crossed the Banihal district on the Jammu-Srinagar National highway on its way to base camps of Pahalgam and Baltal in Kashmir Valley.
With today's batch, as many as 23,677 pilgrims have left Jammu for their onward journey to the temple.