New Delhi: The Delhi administration on July 18 canceled an annual walking pilgrimage carrying Ganges River water.
“The Kanwar Yatra has been banned in Uttarakhand, but despite this, there is a risk of the spread of the virus due to crowding or taking out processions, in view of which this decision has been taken,” says an order from the Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA).
The Delhi move comes a day after the government of the neighboring state of Uttar Pradesh banned the religious event. No celebrations, processions or gatherings related to the yatra, scheduled from July 25, will be allowed in the national capital, said a DDMA official.
The Uttarakhand government has already called off the event amid fears expressed by experts of a possible third wave of the pandemic and the risk posed by such gatherings.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had earlier said all governments and people alike must take required actions to curtail the spread of Covid-19.
The yatra goes on until the first week of August. Thousands of devotees of Lord Shiva, called kanwariyas, travel mostly on foot to collect water from the Ganges in Haridwar to offer at Shiva temples back home.
The yatra is linked to Hindu pilgrimage places of Haridwar, Gaumukh and Gangotri in Uttarakhand and Sultanganj in Bihar.
Millions of participants gather sacred water from the Ganga and carry it across hundreds of miles to dispense as offerings in their local Śiva shrines, or specific temples such as Pura Mahadeva and Augharnath temple in Meerut, and Kashi Vishwanath, Baidyanath, and Deoghar in Jharkhand.
The decision to ban the annual religious event in Uttar Pradesh came after the Supreme Court said it cannot allow the state government “to hold 100 percent physical Kanwar Yatra in view of Covid.” It also said that sentiments, including religious, are subservient to the Right to Life.
The federal had told the top court that the state governments must not permit any kind of Kanwar yatra because of the pandemic and arrangements should be made for water from the Ganges to be available through tankers at designated places.
The Kanwar Yatra was cancelled last year too, amid the first wave of the pandemic.
Source: ndtv.com