In almost a week long celebration starting from Patarpendi to Gruha Pravesh, the Sital Sasthi Yatra of the year came to an end on Monday evening.
The homecoming procession of the Yatra is the main attraction of the festival where artists from all over the country take part and perform their talents for the amusement of the public as well as the devotees who throng in lakhs from different areas including neighbouring Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand.
The home coming procession of the ‘Naba Dampati’ that started at midnight of Sunday ended on Monday evening with ‘Mandir Pravesh’. And it was a herculean task for the police and administration to control the crowd and maintain law and order since there was a huge rush after a two years gap.
The night and morning hours were cool. But about 9.00 am again the scorching sun made life miserable. Still overenthusiastic people enjoyed the procession and the cultural events with lots of interest.
“There was no problem anywhere due to massive police deployment and pre-preparation with experienced police personnel of the district and the range,” informed SP of Sambalpur B Gangadhar.
Mukha dance, Aghori dance, tribal dance, black cobra dance, folk dance, record dance and many other events were the main attractions during the procession that people enjoyed for almost 18 hours from midnight to next day evening.
At the same time, devotees were also busy in having Darshan of the ‘Jugal Murty’ to have their blessings since it is believed that Darshan of Lord Shiva and Maa Parvati as ‘Naba Dampati’ is highly auspicious and blissful.