Devotee surge grips UP’s religious centres, admins scramble to streamline rush
From restricting vehicle entries, traffic diversions to highway holding areas, new plans and strategies put in place to ease the pressure on Ayodhya, Varanasi and Chitrakoot.
Amid the huge surge of pilgrims primarily headed for Prayagraj, several thousand vehicles and people remain stranded for hours on different highways, as state authorities have been rushed in to control crowd inflow to the Mahakumbh.
Besides Prayagraj, devotees coming from faraway districts and states are now spilling over into other pilgrimage towns of Ayodhya, Varanasi and Chitrakoot, stretching district administrations to their limits in an effort to keep things running smoothly.
This swell of devotees is bound to increase further as the next Amrit Snan of the Mahakumbh is only a few days away - on February 3.
“We have made holding areas in Prayagraj’s adjoining districts including Rae Bareli, Pratapgarh and Kaushambi to control the flow into the Mahakumbh and diversions on roads and highways heading towards other pilgrimage cities like Ayodhya, Varanasi and Chitrakoot. Arrangements have been made,” said an additional director general rank official of UP Police headquarters in Lucknow, who was privy to the development.
Meanwhile, long-route pilgrims from states like Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Goa, Maharashtra, and Gujarat do not mind getting diverted if they eventually reach their destinations: Ayodhya, Varanasi and Chitrakoot.
A devotee from Gujarat’s Surat, Muralidhar, who visited the Mahakumbh and was headed to Ayodhya along with his family, said, “We have come a long way from Gujarat to Prayagraj and now we are going to Ayodhya for Darshan. There are some diversions on the highway, but it doesn’t matter if we reach Ayodhya a few hours late.” Along with others, he was stranded at Chaupala crossing in Barabanki district, adjoining Ayodhya.
Circle officer of Barabanki Sadar, Harshit Chauhan said diversions had been enforced to reach Ayodhya from Barabanki, which is the connecting town between Lucknow and Ayodhya. He said the traffic from Lucknow going towards Ayodhya has been diverted towards Gonda.
Ayodhya
A government release read that 65 lakh devotees flocked to Ayodhya within 96 hours after taking a dip at the Mahakumbh on Mauni Amavasya.
It read that temple authorities have extended darshan hours and are working tirelessly to manage the massive crowd.
Ayodhya district magistrate (DM), CV Singh, said, “We are continuously reviewing and monitoring to provide better arrangements and a safe environment for devotees coming from the Mahakumbh to Ayodhya”.
According to official sources, over 25 lakh people have been visiting Ayodhya town every day for the past week, out of which around 2.5 lakh devotees are visiting the Ram temple daily. They said the temple is working 18 to 20 hours a day to meet the rush of visitors.
A senior police official said that around 10 to 15 lakh people who want to visit Ram temple are waiting in different holding areas outside Ayodhya town. He said the administration is allowing entry to devotees into Ayodhya, in batches of 5 to 10 thousand people, after an equal number exits.
Besides, all the roads leading to Ayodhya from Gonda, Basti, Gorakhpur, Ambedkar Nagar, Sultanpur, Rae Bareli, Barabanki and Lucknow have been barricaded around 20 kilometers away from Ayodhya town, he added.
Varanasi
A similar rush was visible in Varanasi, located on the banks of the Ganga, where visitors from Nepal and faraway states like Telangana, Rajasthan and Gujarat have reached the town after taking a holy dip at the Mahakumbh.
Varanasi Commissionerate police have made as many as 15 temporary holding areas on the Varanasi outskirts for parking vehicles, especially buses, minibuses coming from Prayagraj and Ayodhya.
Additional deputy commissioner of police, traffic, Rajesh Pandey says, “Several steps have been taken for crowd management. Vehicles coming to Kashi from Prayagraj and Ayodhya are being diverted to these temporary parking areas to control the crowd.” He said that personnel have been deployed at temporary parking areas and are ensuring that no vehicles, except those having Varanasi registration numbers, enter the city.
Dhangarhi (in Nepal) resident Yashoveer Singh said, “We started for Mahakumbh from Nepal from January 28. We reached Ayodhya on January 28 and offered prayers to Lord Sri Ram. Thereafter, we left for Kashi by our bus. But it took us more than 12 hours to reach Kashi due to a traffic diversion and traffic jams between Ayodhya and Kashi. As our bus reached the outskirts of Varanasi, it was stopped and diverted to a holding area in Harahua.”
He said that along with his group from Nepal, he went to the Kashi Vishwanath Temple by autorickshaw, took a dip in the Ganga, and is now bound for the Mahakumbh.
Hyderabad resident Ranga Reddy echoed him.
Rae Bareli
Yashveer Singh, superintendent of police, Rae Bareli - the district that connects Lucknow to Prayagraj - said that as many as 11 holding areas with parking capacities of 50 to 250 vehicles have been made in school and colleges.
Chitrakoot
At Chitrakoot, which falls en route to Prayagraj, a steady flow of pilgrims continues to arrive despite severe disruptions caused by delayed trains and roadblocks.
A police official said that many devotees are turning towards Chitrakoot as the entry into Prayagraj has been restricted due to Wednesday’s stampede. He said that many pilgrims chose to continue on foot after a long queue of vehicles were stranded on the road heading towards Prayagraj. He said thousands of pilgrims reached Ramghat in Chitrakoot and took a ceremonial dip in the Mandakini. Afterward, they visited the Kamadnath Temple and performed circumambulations.
“This influx of pilgrims has been ongoing for the past four days, with many arriving from various states,” confirmed Chitrakoot district magistrate Shivsharanappa GN, adding, “Similar influx was also seen on Thursday with several groups of pilgrims trekking towards Chitrakoot on foot”.
SP Chitrakoot Arun Kumar Singh said, “Despite the challenges, the religious atmosphere in Chitrakoot remains lively, with officials consistently monitoring key religious sites like Bharat Koop, Ramghat, and Bargad, ensuring that pilgrims’ safety remains a priority during the Mahakumbh,” he added.
Fatehpur and Kanpur
Nearly 900 vehicles carrying pilgrims were halted in five designated holding areas in Fatehpur and Kanpur following the Mahakumbh stampede.
In Fatehpur, three holding areas--Airstrip in Sadar Kotwali, Radha Nagar, and Khaga--accommodated approximately 600 vehicles. Meanwhile, in Kanpur, around 300 vehicles were stopped in two holding zones at Ghatampur and Purva Meer in Maharajpur.
With inputs from Lucknow, Barabanki, Rae Bareli, Ayodhya and Varanasi
Age no bar, devotion paramount
Devotees from far away states and districts are still queueing up on Thursday at the district borders to visit the Mahakumbh. Age, multiple diversions and other hiccups could not restrict devotees moving towards the Sangam.
Shakuntla Singh, 84, who was walking towards Sangam along with six family members, wishes to collect sacred Sangam waters after a dip and prays to get back home to Aligarh (around 500km from Prayagraj).
This octogenarian woman has walked almost 12 km where the bus in which she was heading to Prayagraj got trapped in a traffic jam near Gauhania crossing, located around 25km from Prayagraj city in trans-Yamuna area of Prayagraj district.
“With no rail tickets available, we came by bus to the MP-UP border at Rewa where we were stopped for eight hours owing to a stampede at Sangam. We finally reached a few kilometers ahead of Gauhania owing to a traffic jam and started to walk towards Sangam,” she said, showing the blisters on her feet.
At Gauhania, where the route from Rewa in MP is getting pilgrims from all over Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and even Maharashtra, intersects with a road bringing pilgrims from Chitrakoot and Banda etc. district, a huge crowd of both inbound and outbound pilgrims is crowding the area amidst heavy traffic jams.
21 hrs stuck in a car
“ It was a harrowing experience since I could neither go back, nor come out of it. In any case, I had to drive forward, and I did,” he said.
Anushree, a resident of Prayagraj, who wrote the JEE entrance exam in Varanasi on Wednesday, left for Prayagraj around the same time as the Chakravartys. She also remained stuck in the traffic jam throughout the night and reached her house in Prayagraj on Thursday.
Several people faced harrowing traffic jams on the Varanasi-Prayagraj highway and other roads leading to Prayagraj, since vehicles were stopped on borders of adjoining districts, including Bhadohi, Mirzapur, Jaunpur, for crowd control after the Mahakumbh stampede on Wednesday.