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Ganesh immersion processions end in Pune after 29 hours; highest in 7 years
Marking a high point of the 10-day festival, the visarjan was all colourful, chaotic, noisy and emotional... with a promise to return next year
The ceremonious Ganesh immersion marking a high point of the 10-day festival completed in record 29 hours on Saturday. The duration was the highest after 2014 with huge crowd seen on roads after two years to bid farewell to the elephant god.
The traditional procession which began from Belbaug chowk at 12:46 pm on Friday concluded at Alka Talkies at 4.45 pm on Saturday, before proceeding to river banks. Each of the participating mandals got ample time to display their skills and passed through smoothly at Belbaug chowk.
Ganesh immersion processions were not allowed due to Covid-19 restrictions in 2020 and 2021.
Pune police commissioner Amitabh Gupta thanked mandals and participants “for peaceful immersion procession”. He commended the police staff for bandobast of more than 30 hours during the concluding immersion and throughout the festival.
He said that every mandal got ample time to show their skills before the public after a gap of two years.
“Manache Ganpati mandals took too much time for visarjan (immersion), but we managed to finish procession without delay,” he said. The procession moved smoothly throughout its five-kilometre stretch with thousands of devotees lining the streets to enjoy the spectacle.
This year, 155 mandals participated in the procession on Laxmi road and 128 on Tilak road. A total of 290 mandals had taken immersion passes from the police. The last mandal arrived at Alka chowk at 4.45 pm.
The immersion procession was delayed as many mandals stopped during midnight and resumed on Saturday morning.
Locals alleged that many mandals violated noise pollution guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court by playing loud DJ music even after midnight. Police said that it has recorded noise level at each station and will take action post procession.
Traditionally, all five “Manache Ganpati”, including Kasba, Tambdi Jogeshwari, Tulshibaug, Guruji Talim and Kesariwada, should complete immersion by 6 pm. However, this year, they completed the ceremony by 9:10 pm, with the delay affecting the rest of the procession.
The main attraction of the procession was Shrimant Dagdusheth Halwai Ganpati. The colourful chariot participated in the procession at 6:30 am on Saturday instead of its traditional timing of 10:30 pm – 11:45 pm on the day of immersion. Hence, mandals following Dagdusheth Ganpati also got delayed.
Police said incidents of phone and gold chain theft were reported from different parts of the city during the Ganesh immersion procession.
The Pune city police had deployed a 4,579-strong force on roads to maintain law and order during the immersion procession, according to officials. Additionally, four assistant police commissioners, 10 police inspectors, 50 assistant police inspectors, 250 police staffers, two teams of State Reserve Police (SRP), and 259 homeguards were deployed. Around 3,600 mandals participated in the immersion processions on Friday and Saturday in Pune city.
