The Kanwad Mela has ended on Thursday as Dak Kanwads are now going back after collecting the holy water from the Ganga at Har Ki Paidi. Till afternoon, the roads were chock a block with vehicles with the pilgrims on their way back. However, things eased a bit by late evening as the number of vehicles plying the roads came down as most of the pilgrims left Haridwar by the time. The camps running on Kanwad Patri Marg for days looked deserted in the evening. The people here heaved a sigh of relief as the traffic on the highway looked normal late in the evening a day after it was seen nearly choked with traffic with the Dak Kanwadiyas on their way.
Haridwar was flooded with a sea of humanity during the day hours on Thursday as Dak kanwadiyas kept coming on two-wheelers and other vehicles towards the holy city to fetch water from Ganga to be offered on the Shiva lingas in the temples in their native towns and villages. Clad in saffron T’s and shorts, the Shiva devotees were seen everywhere across the city and the places reverberated with their religious chants. It is learnt that over the past three days, close to 70 percent of the pilgrims flocked to the city. Over a lakh pilgrims had come to Haridwar on their two-wheelers in the past 24 hours, say the cops.
A resident of Shivalik Nagar said, “I counted 50 bikers in one minute crossing the Haridwar-Roorkee National Highway.” It posed a challenge to the daily commuters to cross the bustling NH, the locals said.
Dwelling on the record-breaking rush of the pilgrims this time, SSP Krishna Kumar V K said that over 3 crore pilgrims had left Haridwar till Thursday evening. “However, a new trend has emerged this time, in a departure from the previous one. Earlier, around 70 percent of the pilgrims used to come on foot and the rest on bikes and heavy vehicles. But this time it is the other way round-30 percent on foot and 70 percent on vehicles,” he added. He further said that nearly one lakh two-wheelers, 52,000 light vehicles and 30,000 heavy vehicles with the Dak Kanwadiyas on have come to the city and left. The figurers might go up by Friday morning, SSP said.
Meanwhile, reports of disputes involving the police and the kanwadiyas who tried to enter the city from every possible point, have also been received. However, police claimed that the pilgrimage ended peacefully save for some incidents of arguments.
Providing the figures of the footfalls over the past few years, the SSP said that 50 lakh Kanwadiyas visited in 2007, 60 lakh in 2008 and 75 lakh in 2009. “In the Kumbh year 2010, it shot up to nearly 1 crore. It further rose to 1.5 crore in 2011, 1.75 crore in 2012 and 1.95 crore in 2013. The figures of the past four years are the following-2.30 crore, 2.60 crore and 2.29 crore and 3.29 crore. This year it has surged up to 3.75 crore,” said SSP.
DM, SSP get swayed by the spirit of pilgrimage
Not just the outsiders but the locals and even the District Magistrate and SSP were found swayed by the spirit of the pilgrimage. DM Deepak Rawat filled gangajalis with the holy water from Har Ki Paidi and offered at Daksheshwar Mahadev temple. Ramesh Chandra Panda, a pharmacist based in Haridwar Industrial Area, said that nobody with devotion deep in heart could remain immune from the spirit of the pilgrimage.
“For the first time, I am undertaking the pilgrimage from Har Ki Paidi to Neel Kanth Mahadev temple starting from my residence in Civil lines in Roorkee. I have even purchased a special dress for the occasion,” he said.
A young man in his 30s seen on the pilgrimage said, “I want to be a part of this Junoon. If people can walk 350 miles in 10 days, I can of course travel 40 miles.
I want to build up my capacities for undertaking such Padyatra. We hardly utilise 10 percent of our capacities.”