The rise of MDR (multi drug resistant) ESKAPE pathogens in hospitals is a pressing global healthcare crisis, demanding urgent attention and action. The current study investigates the prevalence and antimicrobial resistance patterns of ESKAPE pathogens in a tertiary care hospital in the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir, India. Out of 244 ESKAPE pathogens isolated in present study from patients of a tertiary care hospital, 84 (34.4 %) isolates were identified as Staphylococcus aureus, of which 59.52 % were identified as methicillin resistant S. aureus (MRSA), 4.76 % were methicillin sensitive S. aureus (MSSA) and 35.71 % were methicillin resistant coagulase negative staphylococci (MR-CoNS). The mecA gene (methicillin resistant staphylococcal cassette chromosome) was detected in 61.9 % of the S. aureus isolates of the present study. Klebsiella pneumoniae was the second most prevalent (28.75 %) pathogen, followed by Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Escherichia coli (27.5 % each), Acinetobacter baumannii (11.87 %), and others. A higher number of isolates were recovered from male patients (61 %) than from female patients (39 %). Screening for β-lactamase genes (bla