Sagar Island: Defying intense cold and foggy condition thousands and hundreds of pilgrims, converged in this part of eastern India from across India and took holy dip in the confluence of the Ganga and Bay of Bengal to celebrate annual Sankranti on Monday, official sources said.
After hundreds of sadhus and sanyasis took the holy dip, the common devotees, majority of whom had spent time around the sandy beach covered with hogla (cattle leaves shades), Took bath in phases from midnight onwards.
The devotees after offering water to the Sun God and then walked straight to the Kapil Muni Ashram mandir, nearly 500 mts, Away to offer prayers with incense sticks and traditional coconuts and nakul dana, made of sugar.
According to an almanac the auspicious timing for the 'maha snan" began around 12.13 AM on Monday and continued for the next 24 hours.
Non untowards incident reported so far around the Ganga Sagar island, nearly 110 kms south of Kolkata, situated farthest South 24 Parganas district of the state.
The state government has made elaborare arrangements for smooth movement of the pilgrims.
Three state Ministers headed by Sports and Youth Affairs Minister Aroop Boswas have been monitoring the situation with three-pronged security arrangements- land.water and sky.
Biswas said about 6.5 million devotees from across the country have already arrived in the Sagar Island till Sunday night.
Besides Biswas, Minister —Pulak Roy, and Partha Bhowmick are also monitoring the situation.
On Sunday evening the Sankaracharya of Puri offered arati near the ghat.
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who already visited the mela sites late last week, told reporters at Nabanna that this time the visitors may cross one crore in two weeks time.
The snan would continue till January 17, an official said.
This time a large number of foreign devotees also came from Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh.
The devotees, both men and women, also made quick purchase of local artefacts, basically essentials for religious purpose.
