Uttarakhand Kanwar yatra: Devotees asked to bring ID cards, keep 'kanwars' smaller

Dehradun: Shiva devotees coming for Kanwar yatra to Haridwar in Uttarakhand this year have been asked to carry their identity cards and keep the height of their 'kanwars' less than 12 feet to avoid accidents, officials said on Saturday.

These decisions were taken at an inter-state coordination meeting of police officials chaired by Uttarakhand DGP Ashok Kumar at the state police headquarters here on Friday. The Kanwar yatra begins on July 4 and will go on till July 15.

The DGP said the yatra is a big religious event and police departments of all states concerned should start acting in total coordination well in advance for effective crowd management and the safety of devotees.

Drones and CCTVs will be used and social media will be monitored for the purpose, he said.

Limiting the height of kanwars to less than 12 feet was necessary due to 100 per cent electrification of the railway tracks in Uttarakhand. Bringing higher kanwars with totally electrified railway tracks could be risky, an official who attended the meeting said.

Kanwar yatra is an annual event during which devotees of Shiva, known as 'Kanwaris', travel by foot to pilgrimage sites in Haridwar, Gaumukh and Gangotri in Uttarakhand. They carry two containers attached to a single pole usually made of bamboo on their shoulders to fetch waters form the Ganga river. The water-filled containers are then carried for hundreds of miles to offer the water to local Shiva temples.

Around four crore kanwariyas are expected to come to Haridwar for the Kanwar yatra this time, Haridwar's Senior Superintendent of Police Ajay Singh said.

The entire Kanwar area has been divided into 12 super zones, 32 zones and 130 sectors, he said, the officials said. A QR code has also been issued by Haridwar Police for the yatra in which all information related to vehicle parking spaces, route diversion and lost and found cell phones have been made available, they said.

As many as 333 CCTV cameras will be installed in the Kanwar fair area and more than 5,000 police personnel deployed in and around Haridwar to maintain a vigil, the officials said.

Twelve companies of central paramilitary forces have been sought from the Centre besides three bomb disposal and dog squads, the meeting was informed. The meeting was attended in person or virtually by police officials from Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan, they said.