Mahakumbh: Heavy devotee influx chokes city roads, bathing ghats

Devotee influx at Mahakumbh caused severe traffic jams; over 1.32 crore bathed by day's end, with total pilgrim count expected to exceed 50 crore.

Heavy devotee influx since Friday night, resulted in roads of different localities in the city as well as approach roads to Mahakumbh Nagar and all bathing ghats getting choked on Saturday. Traffic jams and bumper-to-bumper traffic was reported even in the outskirts of the city on almost all routes leading inwards.

Heavy traffic led to choking of city roads on Saturday. (HT Photo)

Official records revealed, by 8am 32.31 lakh devotees had bathed in the Ganga which increased to 71.46 lakh at noon, while the count further swelled to 87.14 lakh at 2pm, and crossed the 1.32 crore mark by the end of the day.

Records revealed that on Friday, the count of devotees having taken the dip since commencement of Mela had crossed the 40-crore mark with 40.68 crore devotees having bathed in holy waters till 8pm on Friday.

Police and paramilitary personnel faced a tough time trying to streamline the movement of devotees heading for the Mela and those returning from it after taking a holy dip.

In view of the continuous heavy influx of devotees in the Mela area, according to government claims, the total pilgrim count could well cross the 50-crore (500 million) mark.

The Mahakumbh has witnessed completion of four out of total six bathing including three Amrit Snans of Makar Sankranti on January 14, Mauni Amavasya on January 29 and Basant Panchami on February 3, besides the first bathing of Paush Purnima on January 13, as well as the month-long Kalpwas, which will end with the fifth bathing of Maghi Purnima on February 12.

An analysis of official data revealed that Mauni Amavasya saw the highest turnout of eight crore (80 million) devotees taking a holy dip. On Makar Sankranti, 3.5 crore devotees participated in the Amrit Snan. Additionally, on February 1 and January 30, more than two crore pilgrims took the sacred dip each day. Paush Purnima witnessed 1.7 crore bathers, while Basant Panchami ecorded 2.57 crore devotees bathing at the Sangam.

President Droupadi Murmu is scheduled to visit Prayagraj on February 10 to participate in the sacred ritual at the Triveni Sangam.