VARANASI: A sea of revellers, especially devotees from across the country, could be seen on the routes leading to Kashi Vishwanath Dham on the inaugural day of 2022 on Saturday despite the fact that Covid-19 menace had adopted rising trend in past three days and reports of a stampede at Vaishno Devi shrine in Jammu leading to casualties.
The surprising size of crowd not only thre traffic arrangements out of gear but all exercises by the cops for crowd regulation proved to be insufficient.
Talking to TOI DCP Kashi zone RK Gautam said, “People had started forming queues on the routes leading to KVD since 3 am despite the night curfew in effect. Till 3 pm over three lakh pilgrims had entered Kashi Vishwanath temple to offer prayer. As per estimate over 1.5 lakh people were still standing in queues.
As per the records of temple administration and Gyanvapi security control room, KVT remains crowded in normal days due to arrival of outstation pilgrims. The officials said, in normal days the average footfall of devotees in non-festive seasons remained around 10,000 while on special occasions like Mahashivratri and Mondays of Shrawal month the volume of devotees goes above 1.50 lakh to two lakhs in past years except the period of two previous waves of Covid-19.
The officials said that massive increase in footfall of devotees at KVD is evident since its opening by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The PM and chief minister Yogi Adityanath themselves had informed during speeches that on December 19 the figure of devotees entered KVD had gone up to 1.5 lakhs.
With the dawn of 2022 queues of devotees on Dashaswamedh-Godowlia-Bansphatak and Maidagin-Chowk roads also increased. As no such huge turnout was expected by the officials, the movement of two wheelers, e-rickshaws and paddle rickshaws was not stopped in morning. However, when moving even on foot started proving impossible and the reports regarding stampede at Vaishno Devi shrine in Jammu were received, the officials swung into action.
The divisional commissioner Deepak Agrawal and district magistrate Kaushal Raj Sharma also reached KVD. Gautam said that area between Maidagin and Godowlia was made free from rickshaws and even two-wheelers while traffic diversion was started from Beniabagh, Ramapura and Sonarpura by late afternoon to minimise the density of crowd. Additional police force, PAC, squads of women cops and others were also called by the officials, who were ensuring anti-sabotage checking by bomb-disposal and dog squads on regular interval.
However, none of these exercises were proving sufficient to regulate the crowd while people were also careless about the prescribed norms of social distancing in city, which recorded 25 new Covid-19 positive cases since Wednesday.
The alarming scene was not only evident in vicinity of KVD but massive crowding was also visible at Sankat Mochan, Kaal Bhairo, Saranath and other prominent temples of city as well as Vindhyachal temple in Mirzapur. Revellers had also gathered in huge numbers at ghats, sand bed of opposite bank of river Ganga, public parks of Sarnath, on the campus of Banaras Hindu University and multiplexes.
The surprising size of crowd not only thre traffic arrangements out of gear but all exercises by the cops for crowd regulation proved to be insufficient.
Talking to TOI DCP Kashi zone RK Gautam said, “People had started forming queues on the routes leading to KVD since 3 am despite the night curfew in effect. Till 3 pm over three lakh pilgrims had entered Kashi Vishwanath temple to offer prayer. As per estimate over 1.5 lakh people were still standing in queues.
As per the records of temple administration and Gyanvapi security control room, KVT remains crowded in normal days due to arrival of outstation pilgrims. The officials said, in normal days the average footfall of devotees in non-festive seasons remained around 10,000 while on special occasions like Mahashivratri and Mondays of Shrawal month the volume of devotees goes above 1.50 lakh to two lakhs in past years except the period of two previous waves of Covid-19.
The officials said that massive increase in footfall of devotees at KVD is evident since its opening by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The PM and chief minister Yogi Adityanath themselves had informed during speeches that on December 19 the figure of devotees entered KVD had gone up to 1.5 lakhs.
With the dawn of 2022 queues of devotees on Dashaswamedh-Godowlia-Bansphatak and Maidagin-Chowk roads also increased. As no such huge turnout was expected by the officials, the movement of two wheelers, e-rickshaws and paddle rickshaws was not stopped in morning. However, when moving even on foot started proving impossible and the reports regarding stampede at Vaishno Devi shrine in Jammu were received, the officials swung into action.
The divisional commissioner Deepak Agrawal and district magistrate Kaushal Raj Sharma also reached KVD. Gautam said that area between Maidagin and Godowlia was made free from rickshaws and even two-wheelers while traffic diversion was started from Beniabagh, Ramapura and Sonarpura by late afternoon to minimise the density of crowd. Additional police force, PAC, squads of women cops and others were also called by the officials, who were ensuring anti-sabotage checking by bomb-disposal and dog squads on regular interval.
However, none of these exercises were proving sufficient to regulate the crowd while people were also careless about the prescribed norms of social distancing in city, which recorded 25 new Covid-19 positive cases since Wednesday.
The alarming scene was not only evident in vicinity of KVD but massive crowding was also visible at Sankat Mochan, Kaal Bhairo, Saranath and other prominent temples of city as well as Vindhyachal temple in Mirzapur. Revellers had also gathered in huge numbers at ghats, sand bed of opposite bank of river Ganga, public parks of Sarnath, on the campus of Banaras Hindu University and multiplexes.
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