UJJAIN: Around 17 months after entry was shut down due to Covid-19, devotees were finally allowed to attend the famous Bhasmarti at Mahakaleshwar temple in Ujjain on Saturday.
As many as 696 pilgrims attended the Bhasmarti – an predawn ritual carried out to appease Lord Shiva. The gates to the temple were opened at 4am, allowing pilgrims to enter from gate number 5 after conforming to all Covid norms, temple authorities said. Unfortunately, however, nearly half of them were found to violating Covid guidelines – they had their masks dangling from the chin, or had dispensed with it entirely though the temple administration has made face masks and Covid-appropriate behavior mandatory.
Though entry of devotees was banned since March 2020, temple priests have been carrying out the Bhasmarti ritual on a daily basis. The Mahakaleshwar Temple management reopened the temple to devotees on June 28, making fullvaccination certificate or negative RTPCR test report mandatory for every devotee. Entry to the sanctum sanctorum and Bhasmarti Darshan were banned until now.
The administration is finding it difficult to ensure that devotees follow Covid SOPs. On July 26, despite the management announcing that only 5,000 people will be allowed into the temple, after prior booking, on the first Monday of Shravan, more than 50,000 turned up at the gates.
