2.25 crore likely to take dip at Sangam
PRAYAGRAJ:A whopping 2.25 crore devotees are expected to take a dip in Sangam on the occasion of Mauni Amavasya, considered to be religiously most auspicious among the six royal bathings, on Friday during the ongoing 43-day Magh Mela. The bathing muhurat (auspicious timing) is between 1.41 am on Friday and 2.06 am on Saturday. For the bathing, devotees had started pouring in from Tuesday onwards and as per rough estimates around 1 core had already arrived in Sangam city by Thursday morning. In view of the continuous arrival of devotees in the city through train as well as road, district administration has implemented traffic diversions besides deploying more buses for ferrying devotees, said Magh Mela officer Rajneesh Mishra.
He said considering the huge rush, the number of bathing ghats had been increased from 6 to 18. District magistrate Bhanu Chand Goswami has also issued directives to all magistrates and government staff deployed on mela duty for ensuring smooth management of crowd in the mela area as well as the city. Further paramilitary force has been deployed in the mela area and movement of four-wheeler in mela area has been banned for the next two days. As per IG, Prayagraj range KP Singh, securitymen had been deployed in all the six sectors of mela and roundthe-clock vigil was being maintained through CCTV cameras as well as physical patrolling. On key spots in mela area, security personnel will be working in 12-hour shift, he further said. Also, the railways has decided to run three dozen special trains on different routes. The DM has also ordered closure of all educational institutions in the city from nursery to class 12 of all boards on January 24. The 43-day mela began with the first official bathing of Paush Purnima on January 10 and will end with the sixth and last bathing of Mahashivratri on February 21.