E-Paper
Covid-19 pandemic forces postponement of Kanwar Yatra
The Kanwar Yatra is the second major religious event to be cancelled or postponed within three days after the Supreme Court disallowed teh Jagannath Rath Yatra in Puri that was scheduled for next week.
At a virtual meeting on Saturday, the chief ministers of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Uttarakhand decided to postpone the annual Kanwar Yatra in view of the Covid-19 pandemic, ANI reported.
“In a meeting today with Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, via video conferencing, it has been decided to postpone Kanwar Yatra in view of #COVID19 pandemic,” ANI quoted the Office of Chief Minister of Uttarakhand as saying.
It did not say anything about alternate dates for the pilgrimage.
The Kanwar Yatra is an annual pilgrimage that devotees of Lord Shiva undertake during the monsoon in July to fetch holy waters of the Ganga from Haridwar in Uttarakhand. Most of the saffron-clad pilgrims called kanwarias, travel on foot.
The main districts in UP through which the procession passes include Saharanpur, Shamli, Baghpat, Meerut and Ghaziabad.
The Kanwar Yatra involves a massive logistical and security exercise for the Uttar Pradesh government which has been using helicopters and drone cameras to aerially monitor the fortnight-long pilgrimage.
The Kanwar Yatra is the second major religious event to be postponed or cancelled in three days after the Supreme Court on Thursday disallowed the annual Rath Yatra in Puri that was scheduled for next week.
“In the interest of public health and safety of citizens, we restrain the state from holding the Rath Yatra and associated activities. We direct that there shall be no Rath Yatra and associated activities this year”, the bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sharad Arvind Bobde ordered
