DUMKA: With over two lakh people turning up to offer prayers at Baba Baidhyanathdham on the last Somvari of the Shravan month, the devotees’ footfall at the Deoghar temple broke all previous records.
Administrative sources said that the figure might touch the three-lakh mark by the end of the day.
“Over two lakh devotees have already offered prayers at Baidyanathdham till 5pm. This is probably the highest single-day turnout of devotees here. The figure is likely to go up further as the day progresses,” the public relations officer of Deoghar, Ravi Kumar, said in the evening.
A local priest named Rakesh Parihast said, “The queue of pilgrims extended over 5 km to Nandan Pahad from midnight itself. By morning the queue became 12-km-long from the temple.”
The temple management had prohibited the devotees from entering the sanctum sanctorum since the beginning of Shravan. They have introduced an arghya system through which the devotees can offer water in a large brass vessel (arghya), which, in turn, is connected with a channel extending up to the shivalingam. A separate arghya has also been installed outside the temple’s main gate so that those who can’t enter the temple premises can pour water there as an offering to the lord.
“Around one fifth of the devotees preferred to offer water in the outer arghya to avoid the crowd inside the temple,” an official deployed at the main gate of the temple said.
Deoghar SP Subhash Chandra Jaat, along with his team, maintained vigil throughout the day to make sure that no untoward incident takes place in the routes through which the kanwariyans pass.
The SP said, “We did detailed homework in advance for crowd control and to maintain law and order.”
At Basukinath temple in Dumka, the devotees came in hordes and the footfall is likely to touch two-lakh-mark by the end of the day, officials said.
